Ambient Intelligence – the next step for Artificial Intelligence 2

1 INTRODUCTION

God gifted man with intelligence. This is what differentiates man from animals and this
is how he became the most evolved among other species in this world. He survived with
intelligence. Now man also made machines which could help him in his day to day life.
But the major difference and the drawback of machines was that they could not think.
The incorporation of common sense and reasoning into machines was always a problem
for developers. But with the help of Artificial Intelligence, this problem was solved to
some extent.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer
science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design
of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its
environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy,
who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the science and engineering of making
intelligent machines." The field was founded on the claim that a central property of
humans, intelligence—the sapience of Homo sapiens—can be so precisely described that
it can be simulated by a machine. This raises philosophical issues about the nature of
the mind and the limits of scientific inquiry, issues which have been addressed by
myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity. Artificial intelligence has been the subject
of optimism, but has also suffered setbacks and, today, has become an essential part of
the technology industry, providing the heavy lifting for many of the most difficult
problems in computer science. AI research is highly technical and specialized, deeply
divided into subfields that often fail to communicate with each other. Subfields have
grown up around particular institutions, the work of individual researchers, the solution
of specific problems, longstanding differences of opinion about how AI should be done
and the application of widely differing tools. The central problems of AI include such
traits as reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the
ability to move and manipulate objects. General intelligence (or "strong AI") is still
among the field's long term goals.

Advances in the miniaturization of electronics are allowing computing devices with

various capabilities and interfaces to become part of our daily life. Sensors, actuators,
and processing units can now be purchased at very affordable prices. This technology

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 Ambient Intelligence – the next step for Artificial Intelligence 3

can be networked and used with the coordination of highly intelligent software to
understand the events and relevant context of a specific environment and to take sensible
decisions in real-time.

AmI is aligned with the concept of the “disappearing computer”. Today different
appliances have successfully become integrated to our daily life surroundings to such an
extent that we use them without consciously thinking about them. Computing devices
have transitioned in this past half a century from big mainframes to small chips that can
be embedded in a variety of places. This has allowed various industries to silently
distribute computing devices all around us, often without us even noticing, both in public
spaces and in our more private surroundings. Now washing machines, heating systems
and even toys come equipped with some capability for autonomous decision making.
Auto- motive industry has become increasingly interested in embedding sensing
mechanisms that allow the car to make decisions for a safer and less expensive journey,
and as a result cars now have dozens of sensor and actuator systems that make decisions
on behalf of or to assist the driver. Public spaces have become increasingly occupied
with tracking devices which enable a range of applications such as sensing shoplifted
object and crowd behaviour monitoring in a shopping mall.

College of Engineering, Chengannur