Now…The Intelligence Age

Now…The Intelligence Age

While the Information Age matured over the past three decades, futurists, scientists and engineers have envisioned a time where computing technology could work predictively.  True, much literature and cinema put this capability in the hands of androids. And, as cool as that will be someday, the nearer future is where computing technologies ranging from our PC’s, tablets, smartphones, automobiles, appliances, etc. begin to act in concert with each other to pre-automate processes on our behalf. Today’s Internet of Things (IoT) is a great example of this approach.  Smart, yes but intelligent, no.

IoT represents a conglomeration of static processes into a unified outcome.  The next iteration of this is the conglomeration of dynamic processes into a unified outcome, based on the formulaic weighting of the fourth component of the Intelligence Age: Fluidity.

Today’s tools do not require any contextual consideration to make an optimized decision. AI, by definition, should include a decision-making process, otherwise it would just be another “smart” device strung in with other static processes.  To make that decision, the computation needs to evaluate inputs, weigh a set of variables and then decide on and orchestrate an event based on the optimal solution of the context, which may change of the time.

Camera’s are an example of IoT. Many people have security cameras in their home, or outside. Today’s cameras are “static”, they might alert you when there’s movement, might start recording at certain times of the day, but by no means are they smart yet along intelligent. Some consumer camera technologies are becoming “smart”, by being able to identify who is in view of the camera – for example you really don’t want to be alerted when you come home, but you do want to know when a stranger approaches the house. This is currently available in expensive business systems, and will make its way into consumer technology. However, the next level is having the camera system integrate into the house system and when it detects you car coming home will open the garage door, unlock the door and disable the alarm system. It’s a combination of the integration between the IoT devices (car, camera, home etc) and the computation ability and their associated algorithms that leads to the fluidity.