Workshop Summary: Artificial Intelligence Methods for Ambient Intelligence

Abstract

We are pleased to present the workshop proceedings of the workshop Artificial Intelligence Methods for Ambient Intelligence, which took place as part of the European Conference on Ambient Intelligence on November 7, 2008 in Darmstadt, Germany. Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is the vision of our future environment. In this future environment we will be surrounded by various kinds of interfaces supported by computing and networking technology which will provide an intelligent, seamless and non-obtrusive assistance to humans. The ambient environment will be aware of the presence and identity of the humans, it will be able to communicate in multi-modal form and to anticipate the humans’ goals and needs in order to provide best possible assistance to them. This broad vision addresses all areas of human life, such as home, work, health care, travel and leisure activities. A large amount of interdisciplinary research will be required in order to achieve this vision. Here, Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides a rich set of methods for implementing the “intelligence bit” of the AmI vision. Speech recognition, image interpretation, learning (from user interaction), reasoning (about users’ goals and intensions) and planning (appropriate user interaction) are core features of AmI to which AI can contribute significantly. The goal of this workshop is to make a step forward towards a common understanding of how AI can contribute to the AmI vision and how to align AI research with it.