Does Ubiquitous Computing Need Interface Agents?

Planted 02025-07-27

Does Ubiquitous Computing Need Interface Agents?

Mark Weiser, Head of Computer Science Lab, Xerox PARC

Agents92.tioga, October 6, 1992

Ubiquitous Computing vs. Interface Agents

• something altogether different, even opposed, to interface agents: ubiquitous computing (also known as embodied virtuality)
• outline of this talk:
  • what is ubiquitous computing
  • compare and contrast to interface agents

Context of work: Xerox PARC

• A different kind of research in two ways
  • Reverse technology transfer: PARC transfers research ideas to universities to pursue.
  • We deploy and use our discoveries.
• Over twenty years of pioneering basic research
  • Individuals change, innovation continues
  • Steady Xerox commitment to long-range research
  • Laboratories ranging from physics to anthropology, all working together.
• Connection to Xerox
  • PARC technology in nearly every product
  • Research a vital part of The Document Company

Premise: Metaphors Matter

This is a talk about metaphors and world views

• All people see and understand the world as filtered through a world view
  • The world view itself is not seen
  • Because the world view filters everything, it is hugely influential on what we do
  • Some metaphors become ingrained as world views
• Metaphors are extremely influential
  • Plato’s metaphors of ideal forms and knowledge as viewing shadows in a cave influencing 2,000 years of theories of knowing
  • Rousseau’s “Noble Savage” influence in the French revolution, morals, cruel experiments on children
  • The metaphor of the “master molecule” delayed biochemical understanding

People are most effective and authentic when they are fully engaged, mind and body, in the world

• Examples:
  • flow of the athlete in the groove
  • effortless use of pencil, paper and language when writing
  • “feel for the organism” of the great biologist
  • effortless 65 MPH driving of the experienced driver (while talking, reading roadsigns, …)
• This is a basic characteristic of humans, across all cultures
  • Polynesian navigation between islands depends upon attunement with currents, wind, and weather
  • African tailor apprenticeships via peripheral participation depend upon learning by engagement
• Technologies should enhance this ability to engage, to “flow” with life and work

The most powerful technologies are invisible: they get out of the way to let the human be effective

• Electricity
  • Electric motors hidden everywhere (20-30 per car)
  • Electric sockets in every wall and portably available through batteries
  • Integrated, invisible infrastructure
• Literary Technology
  • Continuously surrounding us at many scales
  • Used trivially and profoundly
  • Literally visible, effectively invisible

How to do invisible computing?

• Integrated computer systems approach
  • invisible, everywhere, computing
  • named “ubiquitous computing” in April 1989.
• Invisible: tiny, embedded, attachable, …
• Everywhere: wireless, dynamically configurable, remote access, adapting, …

Goals of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp)

• Ultimate Goal
  • invisible technology
  • integration of virtual and physical worlds
  • throughout desks, rooms, buildings, and life
  • take the data out of information, leaving behind just an enhanced ability to act
• Phase I
  • tabs, pads, and boards
  • hundreds of computers per person
  • wireless networks
  • location-based services
  • shared meeting applications

Using a computer should be as refreshing as a walk in the woods.

ubicomp phase 1: Ubiquitous I/O devices

• Post-it note-sized palmtop computers
  • One hundred per person per office
  • Always have one on you, wirelessly connected
  • Small touch-sensitive display screen
  • Scatter around the office like postit notes
• Notebook-sized computers
  • Ten per person per office
  • Stylus-based input primary
  • Near megabit wireless comm bandwidth
  • Can support multi-media when “tethered”
• Wall displays
  • Large ones used as shared display surfaces (replaces whiteboards)
  • Replace physical bulletin boards, etc.
  • Lots of bandwidth available because they’re plugged into the wall.

Ubicomp is Situated Computing

• Makes use of simple shared context
  • space
  • time
  • proximity
  • affordances (Norman)
• Participation in the context
  • is physical
  • is out here with us
  • is in many small places, including trivial ones

Encouraging result: new science from exploring Ubicomp

• theoretical computer science: network security, caching over slow networks, …
• operating systems: scalable to wristwatches, user-extensible O.S.’s, reliable without redundancy, low power O.S.
• user interfaces, hardware and software: gestures, two-handed input, pie-menus, unistroke alphabets
• networking, hardware and software: radio, infrared, mobile protocols, inbuilding wireless LANs, multimedia protocols over varying bandwidth
• computer architecture, hardware and software: postit-note computers, low power O.S., multimedia pad computers

Some Ubi-Examples

• Activity-based Information Retrieval
  • like filing assistant for physical documents
  • uses events, time, context, who
  • tracks things by badge, and video shape
  • just indexing, no “agent”
• Physical Retrieval
  • book or document beeps with answer
  • screens (active, custom, signs) on walls direct you to right shelf, or right clothes, …
  • Newman and Lamming, EuroPARC

Agent Premise?

• When is a program an agent?
• Many excellent talks in the morning stretched to cover agents
  • Papert: syntonic and non-true/false schooled thinking
  • Dertouzos: EForms, G.S.S.s
  • Kay: handheld machines used everywhere
  • Negroponte: shared context
• Is a human the right model for the ideal computer?
  • An appealing panacea, and so dangerous
  • Better: make the computer more like things of which we are unaware: eyeballs, hands, …

What is the interface agent metaphor?

“I think of a personalized computer as something like a well-trained, long-standing English butler – someone intimately aware of your idiosyncrasies, your habits, your friends, your goals, and who you deal with.”

• You talk to it
• It watches us and learns our needs
• It has “knowledge”, is “aware”, or has a personality
• It is an assistant

Example of the different points of view: Pilot’s Assistant

The goal of the pilot’s assistant is to enhance the ability of the pilot to fly the airplane

• Interface agent: like a co-pilot
  • watching the planes systems and the situation
  • offering advice, answering questions
• Ubicomp: like a simpler, better airplane
  • the arrangement of controls, displays, windows, seats, etc.
  • the ability to act is enhanced by the total system
  • no locus of expertise
• For example: being alerted of a potential collision
  • agent: “collision, collision, go right and down”
  • ubicomp: background presentation of airspace information for continuous spatial awareness, as in everyday life. You’ll no more run into another airplane than you would try to walk through a wall.

Four myths in the agent metaphor

• Myth 1: voice recognition is important for human/computer interaction
  • Better: voice may help a little, sometimes
  • voice recognition is to computer as typewriter is to paper
• Myth 2: people know what they want, and a smart assistant could help them get it
  • Better: people are opportunists, muddling through, never doing exactly the same thing twice
• Myth 3: people interface with the world
  • Better: people dwell in the world, so they and the world together are a functioning whole, neither alone.
  • “User interface” embodies a type error: it names a boundary that is instead a union.
  • Is marriage a spousal interface problem, improved by a better GUI? Is ecology a plant/animal interface problem, improved by plants with more MIPS?
• Myth 4: hierarchical organization is helpful
  • Better: success in leading comes from understanding, coaching and enabling, not commanding
  • “Master molecule” theories (slime mold, DNA) are not true, instead more complex interaction theories, with no locus of control, are biologically realistic
  • People at the top of hierarchies, e.g. presidents, have little control over the bureaucracy

What’s wrong with the interface agent metaphor?

• You talk to it
  • but what you can say is no different from what you can type: i.e. you lisp at it
  • Myths 1 and 3
• It watches us and learns our needs
  • but has no human context for needs
  • Myths 2 and 3
• It has “knowledge”, is “aware”, has a personality
  • must Artificial Intelligence be solved first?
  • Myths 2 and 3
• It is an assistant
  • it is underfoot
  • Myth 4

Some limitations of the interface agent metaphor

• It does not go far enough
  • it stops at the notion of an assistant
  • much better is the intuitive or anticipatory computer, that needs no commands
  • aim for an extension of our body, or integration of mind/body/world
• It keeps the computer in the foreground
  • personal computer is the wrong idea, intimate computer even worse
  • invisible computer is best
• It stays within an old paradigm
  • breakthroughs less likely, because area well studied
• It obsessively fascinates
  • the human-like machine to which we give life
  • the perfect, all-powerful, slave
  • be careful when appealing to ancient prejudice

Some different design principles

Possible problems with ubiquitous computing metaphor

• A good butler is also invisible
• Invisibility is more poorly focused than agents, less amenable to PhD theses and point products
• People want a personal butler, not just a better life
• Ubiquitous computing is harder, because it requires complete new systems thinking
• An intelligent agent is a better model for some things, like information filtering and controlling access to me

Summary

• Ubiquitous computing avoids metaphors of hierarchy, power, and control, and myths about what it is to be human
• Ubiquitous computing emphasizes metaphors of life, interaction with other people, invisibility, and is leading to new discoveries in computer science

“Using a computer a computer should be as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.”

Two kinds of issues

• Desired end state
  • invisibility vs. explicit interaction
• Means for achieving either end state
  • distributed affordances vs. focused expertise