The New York Times has an article titled Nobody Likes Smart Machines.

Dr. Norman, who the story follows, highlights the problem of predictability that comes as a result of delegation through automating tasks to smart machines that still occasionally require human intervention. They give the example of window blinds that change to suit the weather, the side-effects and resultant feeling of loss of control when your computer screen in the office randomly glares annoyingly back at you. It’s an interesting article that really only covers half the picture.

The conclusion the professor comes to is one many people in the design space probably would. That of making the user experience better by making it more predictable, either by removing functionality or improving control. This is where intelligent design really comes into the fore, but not just intelligent design needs to be considered. Intelligent systems that behave and self-adapt can really shine in this area. The big problem is how to do that effectively so as to account for not one person’s vision of how the world works, but that of many peoples. This is where personalization comes in and what I call object profiles, personalised profiles for objects just like that of the seat in an up-market car that adapts to an individual upon entry.

The key here is context. Maintaining the context of the environment surrounding the intelligent system in order to teach it personal traits and habits.

You can’t explain to your car’s navigation system why you dislike its short, efficient route because the scenery is ugly. Your refrigerator may soon know exactly what food it contains, what you’ve already eaten today and what your calorie limit is, but it won’t be capable of an intelligent dialogue about your need for that piece of cheesecake.

What this fails to account for is Machine Learning, narrow AI and that of the power of context in deriving best outcomes.

By context I mean monitoring everything you do and building a current and future picture of the world based upon past history.

Say you own one of those new fangled fridges that automatically orders the food to be home delivered if you run out of anything. What happens if you decide the next week that you want to go on holiday? How can the fridge know you won’t be needing it’s services until say the day you get home?

By keeping a record of whatever context you find yourself in. For example the online travel site your entering you holiday bookings into… simply give your intelligent appliances access to that knowledge - that’s how.

Big Brother 2020 style.

There has been a lot of focus lately on attention aggregation. Twitter/Facebook activity feeds are a good example of unstructured partial-attention aggregation, yet that only gets you so far. Real augmentation will come when the systems we interact with can change and adapt to our whim. And that my friends, is the power of context tracking in the digital age. Maintaining a dynamic real-time context profile our surrounding can then use - all based on a list of likely probabilities - probabilities then used to predict what augmentation intelligent systems can assist with next.

Information overload is already here. In a world of never ending pop-up boxes, call marketers, Facebook requests, mail you just throw in the bin and systems asking if you want to allow this or disallow that - systems that learn what we want will be needed to manage the never ending pile of relationship management with others and with our surroundings. When your in giving a presentation somewhere you really don’t want your phone ringing or IM window popping up.

Another advantage of these kinds of systems is the automated feedback loop AFL they make possible. This means device interfaces can be improved through historical collection of context, and actual usage patterns based upon factors that include demographics. New market devices may even emerge as a result of how people used these devices rather than how a designer thinks it should be used. Imagine devices that build an interface reputation for ease of use or productivity in different areas. How much easier would shopping for a new device online become? Increasingly we’re purchasing items without ever seeing or using them and more often than not we’re less satisfied with the outcome. An AFL can help minimize that problem.

What’s needed is the ability to delegate intelligently those monotonous tasks and the user experience that was once a burden becomes a boon.

Now you may think this is years away, but it’s happening now. Google augments personalised search based upon search history and your location aka your context. Individual data silos are already using these techniques to serve advertisements. I read recently that Marissa Mayer stated they use the keywords 411GOOG users enter for machine learning and better translation and search results. Games have long personalised themselves to users, even now to the point of detecting when the gamer is getting bored in order to maximize the user experience (and revenue).

It’s cross-silo and ubiquitous networking of dynamic devices that will bring the next wave of personalisation. I look forward to what my future digital self has in store for me there.

On that note, I’m thinking this needs a name… so building on the great work of VRM, I bring you ARM.

Automated Relationship Management. CRM was already taken and everyone can always use another ARM or a leg.