Ambient intelligence: How AI is becoming omnipresent in our lives and the implications

For years, we have played with the meaning of AI: many call it artificial intelligence, some say it is augmented intelligence or alternative intelligence. A few have stretched it further, comparing it with animal intelligence, especially the mysterious distributed intelligence of octopuses. But perhaps the most revealing phrase is an older one: ambient intelligence.

That term can be traced to the late 1990s, when Eli Zelkha and his colleagues at Palo

Alto Ventures used it in work linked to Philips Research. The vision was of technology so embedded in daily life that it would almost disappear into the environment like air or oxygen. It would be responsive, context-aware, adaptive and quietly present.