The Sentient Office Is Coming

Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, the Economist explains that "sentient computing systems are likely to be everywhere within five years -- listening and watching, and ready to anticipate their users' every need." "By adding sensors to today's computing and communications technology, sentient computing seeks to take account of a machine's environment in order to make it more responsive and useful. Sentient computing systems are always on, ubiquitously available, and can adapt to their users. In short, they seek to become real help-mates." ACM TechNews also wrote an analysis of sentient computing: "Challenges to sentient computing include the seamless integration of wireless networks, the spread of sensors throughout products and the environment, the accurate provision of location data, and the ability of sentient systems to merge vast volumes of widely disseminated data and customize its delivery for users. Other problems researchers will have to tackle include scalability, the development of cooperative file systems, and sentient applications' ability to find screens and network devices in close proximity to users." And of course, there are privacy concerns... Check this summary for additional details."

It is inevitable

[Anonymous Coward]

...but it will be hackers' and script-kiddies' paradise. Just think what you could do with all the audio i/o devices, cameras, location data, etc.

Clippy the ......? or "Stop trying to help me!"

[BWJones]

I am not sure I want a bunch of Clippy's running around in my everyday world second guessing what I want to do. Rather, I would prefer technologies that can do what I want when I invoke them. For instance, standing in your kitchen talking to your SO about a vacation, you say, "computer, find me the best airfare and hotel rates in say, San Francisco for the weekend of the...." The computer would then list those for you. I don't want my fridge saying "it looks like you are out of milk, I therefore ordered 1gal of milk for you" when I am going out of town for a week.

Don't we get this prediction every five years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or something like it? The last Great Computing Hope was truly photorealistic graphics in games. I remember reading this in 1990. Well, 13 years have gone, and in-game images still don't fool me one bit.

Or will we be getting to this sentient office in our flying cars, eating a full course lunch that comes in a pill, and going back to our houses under the sea? Maybe I'll get my robot maid to make me a martini, for retro's sake.

The Fundamental Problem

[jjohnson]

...is that the concept assumes that office dweller knows what she wants.

I'm not being facetious. I work in an office, and I can't think of anyone who's particularly well-organized. The people who do their jobs well have good job habits, not a rigid system that an adaptable computer system can learn to predict.

The basic problem with anticipatory decisions by computers is that, if it offers something the user wants, it's accepted; if it offers something the user doesn't want, it's not just rejected, it's an irritant, an interruption. The cost of being wrong far outweighs the benefit of being right. Like branch prediction in the CPU, it has to be right far more often than it's wrong to be of practical value, and human behaviour is far harder to analyse and predict than computations.

Here We Go Again...

[jmh_az]

Oh boy! AI in my lifetime! It will be awesome!

But, wait, didn't they make this prediction back around, oh, 1966 or so? Nifty theorem provers would unlock the power of the computer for real Artifical Intelligence? No, actually, it was predicted even earlier than that, by no less than Turing. He figured we'd have machines capable of passing his "imitation game" test by the end of the 20th century.

Wrong on all counts. Speech recognition software still requires training and it's clumsy to use. Contents filters (as now mandated for libraries receiving federal funding, thanks to the oh-so-technically-savvy U.S. Supreme Court) still can't reliably tell the difference between breasts as in breast cancer and breasts as in porno. And the AI crowd is still grappling with things like knowledge representation schemas and semantic networks.

IMHO what we will most likely see are systems with huge lookup tables and canned procedural responses driving complex state machines, not flexible systems capable of introspection or foresight. It might even begin to exhibit what the philosophy/cognitive science crowd likes to call "emergent properties". It may even begin to become useful, but it most definately won't be sentient.

I have to admit, though, it would be nice to able to ask my house AI to list my appointments for the day and assemble a personalized news report from the wires while I brush my teeth and get dressed. But I trully don't think that'll be a reality until about the time I decide to pack it in and retire, if then. And then I won't really need it, or even care.

Pfft! They promised us flying cars and video phones, too, and I haven't seen any of those running lately, either.

That's not sentient

[Wateshay]

I hate it when people overload a word's definition in order to create a buzzword. These systems that are being described are not sentient. For something to be sentient, it has to be conscious (i.e. self aware). These aren't sentient systems. They are simply complex predictive systems. AI is a long way from developing sentience.

B.S.

[afidel]

Dumb agents that are tailored and tweaked constantly for specific tasks aren't very good yet, yet somehow omniscient agents that percieve my needs are supposed to be reality in 5 years??? Not likely. AI is a TOUGH problem, I remember when I started looking into it seriously in 97, since then not a whole hell of a lot has changed on the software front. On the hardware front we have gained some decent speed which allows more naive approaches to work. For instance in 96 some researchers made one of the first computer vision system that could read sign language in near real time, but it had to run on a $40K Indigo Graphics workstation, today that same computing power is cheaply available, but I still don't have voice dictation software that takes less time to correct than it takes me to just type in the first place. Somehow I don't see stellar leaps being made in the next 5 years when it has been slow and grueling progress over the last 40.

Same story, different vocabulary.

[Professor D]

Isn't this pretty much the same gee-whiz-bang story about future tech that we hear everytime a "new" technology needs some press? Anyone remember how "fuzzy logic" was going to change everything?

How about tablet PC's that were going to create a paperless office, while agents and intelligent appliances would free us from the drudgery of chores ... leaving us plenty of time to spend with our children ... who would have plenty of free time themselves ... since computers would obsolete schools ... and CD-ROMs would obsolete libraries. But that's ok, since GPS would allow us to keep track of where they went, how fast they were driving ... and smart cards would tell us where they spent their virtual money ... because secure computing was going to free us from paper money ... but not before RFID would prevent counterfeit paper from funding terrorists ... who wouldn't be an issue because of biometric id's ... would allow law enforcment to track potential terrorists by their "terrorist" genes ... that would have been identified in human DNA ... by neural net self-teaching software.

Don't even get me started on how whole cities would be built around "It."

So now someone conned the editors of the Economist into publishing an article about "sentient" environments with Bluetooth-like technology driving it all. Give me a break, we've heard it all before. I don't know exactly how the future will arrive, but I do know it ain't gonna show up via a press conference.

[That being said, as a left handed mouse user and touch typist, why _shouldn't_ all the computers I'm paid to troubleshoot automagically recognize me and give me my damn mouse config, typing macros and shortcuts?]

Is it all just a greedy quest for more money?

[vnv]

First of all, pardon my cynicism. I can't help but think that life is already so very much more complicated for folks with the computers we have today.

Just the upkeep on several PC's takes a lot of time. It doesn't matter what OS they run -- they are all quite complex to most people.

Adding all these new sorts of sensors and having to navigate the extra complexity is not going to make life easier for anyone, especially for those who don't easily comprehend invisible sensors, monitors, data networks, etc.

There is going to be bugs in the code that listens to the incoming data from these sensors and acts on it. And normal people won't have a chance, much less programmers. Who will be able to fix a sensor problem when the house lights don't go off? Or when the toilet keeps flushing even when no one is around?

I can't help but think that many of the new technologies today are nominated for the "Dotcom 2.0" presidency and we're just waiting for one to be accepted by the media and then overhyped and oversold to the public.

As an industry, are we really focusing on making life better for people? Or are we just off inventing stuff to market and make money?

In the Business Week article that was posted recently, it says that over 80% of the cost of "business software" today is spent on installation and maintenance. With more complexity, this figure is likely to skyrocket. We, the people, pay for these costs. They are passed onto us as consumers.

I sit and write this in a tiny little edit box. That's on a nice system with two LCD 1280x1024 monitors. Even though I have plenty of screen space to support a nice editor, I am confined to a little box. It makes me think that there is so much we can do to improve the 'fit and finish' of what we've built so far instead of madly pursuing more and more features.

If we don't slow down the pace of technology, we are just building a giant mountain of half-finished stuff. Sure, a lot of money is made along the way. But has that money been spent wisely? Considering the chilling aftermath of "Dotcom 1.0" in Silicon Valley, I would say not.

I would like to see the old fashioned values of quality, usability, and value return to technology, especially software. Networks of sensors doesn't inspire me with anything other than a sense of dread. Complex stuff that doesn't really make life any better for anyone.

And thank you for reading my somewhat rantish outburst.

Oh yeah, this is gonna work.

[sllim]

Talking to a computer is a fantascticly awful experience.
Case in point:

Clair (automated voice operator from hell, Sprint PCS customers know who I am talking about)

Clair: 'Welcome to Sprint. How may I help you?'

(I begin to sweat, my blood pressure goes up)
'Ummm.... ughhhh...'

Clair: 'Sorry, I don't recognize that response. How may I help you?'

Me: 'ummm Why is there a charge on my phone bill I don't recognize?'

Clair: 'Sorry, I don't recognize that response. How may I help you?'

(If at first you don't succeed, chew clair out)

Me: 'I hate you clair. You are ugly, and your Mom was a 56K modem. Your Dad is an out of work IBM.'

Clair: 'Sorry, I don't recognize that response. How may I help you?'

Me: 'Billing problems?'

Clair: 'Sorry, I don't recognize that response. How may I help you?' ....

goes on and on and on and on...

So yeah, talking to a computer gets me real excited.

Repeat after me, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD.

Re:Clippy the ......? or "Stop trying to help me!"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a matter of how you interface with computers. The important step is to give computers more senses than keyboard and mouse. The positive example you give isn't feasible without enhanced "awareness": To answer your question, the computer would likely have to know where you are. You don't want the answer broadcast to every room. If the answer takes some time, the computer would have to know that you have moved to a different room than the one where the question was asked. Some people would like their fridge to restock automatically, except when they tell it not to (either explicitly or implicitly by booking the vacation). Then it would certainly be nice to have a log of some sort, so you could ask the computer "What have you done today?" and it would give a list of things it has done automatically. A control freak however would still benefit from enhanced sensoric interfaces simply because it makes commanding the machine easier.

No "Off" State!

[irishkev]

B Gates is releasing the 1984 telescreen to beta this fall. I'm going to go live in the trees. The End.

http://www.cryptogon.com/2003_06_15_blogarchive. ht ml#95779870

1984 Telescreen: Microsoft Athens

Digital Rights Management (DRM) computers are going to be a reality just as certainly as the sun will rise in the morning. The systems will be ubiquitous within two years. But what will they look like?

Microsoft has unveiled (unfurled) its hellish vision of the future of computing: Athens. Never mind the fact that Longhorn sees all and knows all. Never mind the fact that you are not root on Longhorn. Never mind the fact that the system is fully integrated with a thumbscanner, camera, telephone and microphone. Never mind the fact that there will be no way to run a non DRM operating system on Longhorn class hardware. (Cops will show up if you somehow manage to circumvent the DRM mechanisms.)

Make sure you're sitting down for this one:

Would you believe that Microsoft's system of the future has no "Off" state? From HardwareCentral.com:

Speaking of mute, Athens will be a whisper-quiet, small-form-factor machine, whose power button switches between on and standby modes rather than on and off -- resuming work in no more than two seconds. In the event of a power failure, a built-in battery will last long enough to hibernate or save system status to the hard disk.

Here is more on the no "Off" feature from a Microsoft document entitled, The "Athens" PC (Microsoft Word document):

The notion of "off" is confusing to users, because the PC can be in standby, hibernation or true "off" modes, Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) states S3, S4 and S5, respectively. Each of these states has a different latency when the user turns the PC on again: it takes longer to start the PC from S4 than from S3, and still longer to start the PC from S5.

In usability tests, participants preferred a two-state (on/standby) power model over a three-state (on/standby/off) model. They felt the two-state power model was more appealing than the power model used by today's PCs. This research suggests that users would be more likely to put their PCs in standby mode if it were more convenient to do so.

Note: The system checks your email when in standby mode, i.e. the network interface and applications are operational in standby mode. That thing isn't off. Not by a long shot.

Yes, you can pull the plug out of the wall, and let the battery go dead.

Will Microsoft call you, though, wondering if your PC is being tampered with? Is the person who unplugged the PC from the power socket authorized to do so? Maybe you will just learn from habit --- from habit that will become instinct --- to never pull the plug out of the wall.

From 1984, by George Orwell:

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live --- did live, from habit that became instinct --- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

I'm still waiting for the paperless office...

[arevos]

Predictions like this are all fine and good, but we have a huge backlog of technology that needs to be developed. For instance, flying cars. We've been promised goddamn flying cars for years now. I want my flying car!

So before working on sentient offices, I suggest some extra time is devoted to such projects as flying cars, the paperless office, the helpful computer, and Duke Nukem Forever.

I hold out hope for all but the last.

Five Years? Doubtful.

[Bombula]

Well it sure isn't going to be M$ that rolls out a sentient OS within 5 years. Anticipate users' needs? How about the need for a OS that is actually secure? Or actually stable?

I only see the faintest glimmer of predictive functionality in the most popular software out there. When the OS can watch across multiple applications, recognize when I do the same 6 commands in Photoshop followed by the same 6 commands in Excel followed by the same 6 commands in Dreamweaver over and over again and anticipate my desire to automate the task as opposed to indulging my private pursuit of carpel tunnel syndrome, then - and only then - will I buy any of this nonsense about sentient computers.

What if we move?

[Xugumad]

Okay, so the article is about the office, but lets talk about this technology in general. I am currently renting, and have so far had to move 16 times in the last 6 years (generally had extrodinarily bad luck finding somewhere permanent). Obviously, as we're renting, things like the fridge, washing machine, etc are part of the flat, and do not move with us.

So, what happens when we move? Does the new fridge try mapping me to its old owner? Maybe it decides I'm an intruder, and throws old milk at me? Are all my preferences written to CD by the old house, for loading into the new, because I'm really sure all the manufacturers will make their equipment compatible!

Additionally, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm always somewhat unnerved by moving. I'm generally a little more tense for a week afterwards, it wrecks havoc with my sleep pattern, this sort of thing. How well will this technology cope with that sort of event?

it's not sentient

[Eminor]

Just because it can "sense" (has inputs), that does not make it sentient.,Sentience requires conciousness. AFAIK silicon is not concious. If that were true, my 386 was sentient and I should have felt bad for "killing" it.