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."

Comments

Clippy writes..

[FryGuy1013]

I now see you are attempting to hang yourself because of your crappy life (and I know it's crappy), would you like to:

* Help you write a suicide note
* Email your lawyer to set your main beneficiary to Microsoft
* Fax an order for another red swingline because someone stole it

At Last!

[teamhasnoi]

I'm glad the Sentient Office is coming, since with all my extra hours and no overtime, I'll soon be downgraded to Inanimate Object!

Proximity Sensoring Stuff...

[Justen]

On the most basic level, some of these ideas exist in tangible forms today.

Salling Software's Clicker is a pretty cool piece of software that does some nifty remote control things with Bluetooth-enabled Sony Ericsson phones. But the really nifty stuff are its "proximity sensor" features. When it senses the phone leaves the computer's general area, it pauses iTunes; when you return, it resumes playing. It can also be AppleScript-enabled, letting you do any number of other proximity-to-computer related tasks.

Just a thought. (No, I don't work for Salling Software.)

Something like Minority Report's smart advertising based on a retina scan comes to mind. Basing this off of wireless phones, it seems very much like this idea might be widespread within a few years.

Interesting technology. That's all.

justen

Coming soon...

[CitizenJohnJohn]

The sentient boss!

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.

The future

[teamhasnoi]

In the future, you will have giant wrench-eyes watching your every move. But you won't be moving. See, they've taken your keyboard and mouse away. In the future, you'll sit in a chair. And like it. You'll be watching commercials. That's it. Your sentient office will make sure of that.

Oh, and your boss will be a cell phone. See, he's yelling at you right now.

God, I hope they have drugs in the future.

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.

Sentient Office?

[Gleng]

I'm still waiting for sentient office workers.

California will be spared

[poptones]

Because the one foe who can defeat SKYNET will be governor by then...

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.

Am I missing something?

[Splurk]

Isn't someone forgetting that tiny stumbling block to making computers sentient? Namely, that nobody knows how sentience works or how to even begin implementing it in software or hardware?

sentient...Note that none of the definitions have anything remotely to do with being able to "anticipate a user's every need."

Somebody seriously needs to rethink the terminology here.

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.

all in a day's work

[martin-boundary]

This morning, I arrived at the office at 9:03. Two hours and 47 minutes later, the stapler became sentient. At 11:51, it attacked the fax machine. At 11:53, my mouse became sentient, and helped the fax machine fend off the stapler's attack. The telephone receiver became sentient at 11:53:17, and decided to attack the defenseless pile of papers to my left. The magic marker I keep next to the pile of blank CDs became sentient at 11:53:28, saw the papers flying about and scribbled obscenities on them. Meanwhile, the fax machine, crippled by the stapler's attacks, started making that shrieking noise. At 11:54:38, my laptop started biting my fingers.

I grabbed my lunch and headed out as fast as I could. It is now 12:45, and I am not sure what I will find when I return to the office, but judging from the terrorised faces of my coworkers, it can't be good.

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.

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.

Sentient Lifts ?

[bushboy]

Lift
(Soft muzakky sort of voice) Hello. I am to be your elevator for this trip to the floor of your choice. I have been designed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation to take you, the visitor to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, into these, their offices. If you enjoy your ride which will be swift and pleasurable then you may care to experience some of the other elevators which have recently been installed in the offices of the Galactic Tax Department, Boobiloo Baby Foods and the Sirian State Mental Hospital, where many ex-Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Executives will be delighted to welcome your visits, sympathy and happy tales of life out in the big wide world.

Zaphod
Yeah? What else to you do besides talk?

Lift
I go up or down.

Zaphod
Good. We're going up.

Lift
Or down.

Zaphod
Yeah, ok, up please.

Lift
Down's very nice.

Zaphod
Oh yeah?

Lift
Super.

Zaphod
Good. Now will you take us up?

Lift
May I ask you if you've considered all the possibilities that down might offer you?