Page 145 - Artificial Intelligence for the Internet of Everything

The Web of Smart Entities 131

7.6 INTERACTING WITH AUTOMATION

We described a highly automated world that is built on and derived from
real-time data and a world in which models of routine behavior are autho-
rized to act for the benefits of their users. It might be daunting to know that
various computing systems record our every activity and build various
models about us, constructing a kind of a virtual alter ego. It is not unrea-
sonable to assume that various computing systems know aspects of a person’s
live better than the person knows him of herself. To some, this may be excit-
ing, but to others, this scenario may be frightening. How will this affect the
way people conduct their lives? Will it be liberating, as our own personal
systems watch over us? Will people live more vicarious lives as they know
the system will intervene when necessary? Will people feel watched? Will
they feel “verklemmt”? Will people hide things from the model or purpose-
fully engage in activities to deceive it, as described in Orwell (1950)? Will
people get used to “big brother” watching them? Will the automation limit
what we can do, a point made by Agamben (2010), or will it liberate us to
live life to the fullest?
We attempted to give a reasonable view of the future, which we see as
largely positive. We see the WSE as inhabited by polite assistants, designed
to make our lives more convenient. We envision automated assistants that
gracefully bow out, when asked to do so. As such, we envision, perhaps
too hopefully, a future in which people can choose and change, at a moment’s
notice, the level of interaction with the WSE. In particular we would argue
that the ability to choose the degree of automation should be a design feature,
something that the user can explicitly manage and, to a certain degree, some-
thing that the model anticipates. In the same context, users should be able to
control what information is gathered about them and who has access to it.
We now describe three points across a spectrum of interactions with auto-
mation: autonomous, semiautonomous, and manual interaction. Among
others, a model authorized to act will seamlessly switch between modes,
or, better yet, move across the spectrum of automation. A smart system will
learn when to bow out, when to step in and at what level to take over.

7.6.1 Fully Autonomous
In this mode of interacting with automation the system makes all of the deci-
sions. For example, as already mentioned, some people eat the same dish on
specific days of the week. This stability is behavior that can be quickly learned.