Social Ambient Intelligence

Talking of hypertext living and ambient intelligence... Crudely putting it, ambient intelligence is about my mobile or other wearable device interacting with intelligent rooms, buildings, kiosks, roads, vehicles, lamp-posts, etc. Fair enough.

But although people interact a lot with inanimate objects such as the above, we do so without consciously thinking about it. I switch on the light, open the door, buy a newpaper, drive my car, avoid obstacles when I walk, and more, without consciously analyzing and planning my interactions. And I manage all that quite skillfully and effectively nonetheless. So my guess is that additional intelligence in my interactions with my physical surroundings would not make too much of a difference.

The kinds of interactions on which we focus consciously are social interactions (or, at least, we tend to do so more often). Whether I am genuinely interested in the other person or I am faking a polite exchange, I focus on handling a person-to-person communication.

A counterexample might be the checkout process at the supermarket: unless they engage in a purposeful conversation, both the client and the cashier can happily expedite this largely mechanical process, being totally absent-minded and ignorant of the identity of each other other, and still complete the checkout and payment process flawlessly. Note that this is not a social interaction though; this is typical of a non-place.

So how about some ambient applications that would enhance the social "intelligence" of our environment? Instead of enhancing interactions with objects, I am trying to think of possible applications that might enhance interactions with other people. Some community business models would probably fall in this category, though I'd consider them rather primitive.

You might ask: what's wrong with plain old talking to one another? Nothing whatsoever. And what would be the use of such applications? I don't know; does anybody know the use of all those other features that are being built into mobile phones? Not really; we are just figuring that out in practice (hence many of them fail) [1, 2].

Here's another primitive idea: you're attending a conference presentation and there are a couple of things you feel you have to say but you miss the chance during Q&A; wouldn't it be nice if you and other attendees could post those comments on a shared 'mobile' space while attending the presentation? You are as likely to use the same time and place to exchange irrelevant SMS with your best friend back home, anyway [1, 2].