Heralding The Era Of Ambient Intelligence (AMI)

No doubt, many of us have heard of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and even Machine Learning (ML), but the world is about to see a whole new trail being blazed in the world of ICT and Computing, and this will be the future we have been waiting for in this field. Welcome to the era of Ambient Intelligence.

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Introduction

Ambient Intelligence (AMI) can be described as a sensitive electronic environment which responds to the presence of people.

In the world of AMI, devices are interconnected and work in unison to assist humans to run their everyday lives. Let me explain it in a layman's language with reference to Artificial Intelligence.

In the world of AMI, when you leave your office late at night, your thermostat, lights and other devices will adjust themselves to save electricity. But AI will just ask you why you're leaving office very late.

For a system to qualify as AMI, there are some features it must possess. These include:

1. Anticipation: They should be able to anticipate your needs without the need for pre-instruction and premeditation.
2. Adaptation: They should change in other to respond maximally to your desires.
3. Personalization: They should be tailored down to your specific needs.
4. Awareness: They must be able to recognise you, and also distinguish you from others.
5. Embedded: They can interconnect other devices within the environment.

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History and Evolution of AMI

The term "Ambient Intelligence" was coined by Simon Birrel, Brian Epstein, and Eli Zelkh in a presentation organised by philips corporation in 1998. In the year 2000, Oxygen alliance came on the scene, and that was a major revolution in AMI,  and many parallel initiatives began. That was how the journey began. Now we have seen smart devices fitting into the description of AMI.

I will give us this real life scenario of how AMI works:

@samminator returns home from his office. On approaching his door, his intelligent CCTV camera recognizes his face, the door opens and tells him "welcome home sir. When he enters his house, the digital map deduces that his little nephew is in the parlour, and his sister has gone to watch a movie at the cinema. When he enters the kitchen, a new message pops up indicating that salt and pepper are almost finished. He grabs some food and goes to the parlour, and switches on the video with his voice. After watching the video for about 1hours, a voice note pops up; "Sir, you look so tired, I strongly suggest you go and take some rest", he goes in to take his rest. And this is it.

Criticism to AMI

The major criticism here is privacy. To fully run AMI, privacy will have to be compromised greatly, because every of your actions and inactions will be monitored by the AMI. And once this information gets uploaded on any website, the principle of net neutrality could come into play.

List of technologies incorporated into AMI

There are some other techs that have been incorporated into AMI; these lists includes, but not limited to:

• Biometrics
• Nanotechnology
• ICT implant
• Motion detector
• Proximity sensor
• Bluetooth
• Efferent computing
• Radio-Frequency Identifier

AMI and Sociality

AMI should be tailored towards meeting the social needs of humans, otherwise the aim would be defeated. It should facilitate contact between humans, and enhance our cultural and communal orientation.

Finally, AMI should be made affordable by the average humans. The evolution has already begun.

Tech Rules!

References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5