Affective Computing

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the part of computer science concerned with designing intelligent computer systems, that is, systems that exhibit the characteristics we associate with intelligence in human behavior — understanding language, learning, reasoning, solving problems, and so on.”
— Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, vol. I, p. 3

The ultimate goal of AI is to equal or surpass human intelligence by simulating the “highest” human faculties of language, discursive reason, mathematics and abstract problem solving. Picard suggests that computers will need emotions to be truly intelligent, and in particular to interact intelligently with humans. But will AI technology actually advance to recognize and express human emotions? Traditional AI rests on the premise of using algorithmic logic to obtain machine intelligence. However, emerging research in the field of affective computing strives to integrate computer theory with emotions.

For example, Javier Movellan's neurocomputing research can now identify hundreds of ways faces show joy, anger, sadness and other emotions. The computers, which operate by recognizing patterns learned from a multitude of images, eventually will be able to detect millions of expressions. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are an information processing paradigm inspired by the way biological nervous systems, such as the brain, process information. Experiments with ANN models have demonstrated an ability to learn such skills as facial recognition, reading, and the detection of simple grammatical structure.

With the prevalence of embedded software agents such as smart agents, Web robots, bots and other collaborative agents that are routinely used to manage workflow, networks, information retrieval, e-commerce and a host of other complex services, the perception of machine intelligence is shifting. Technology may never replicate human emotional experience but there is the possibility that modest advances in human-scale affective artificial intelligence can transform applications from merely mathematical processing units into assistive and perceptive entities.

Bottom of the Pyramid

Week five’s video featuring Paul Braund focused on current global efforts to bridge the digital divide and included best practices for the implementation of ICT (Information Communication Technology) in developing countries.

In his lecture, Braund advocates human-centered research of end-users of technology to achieve sustainability. While addressing the topic of global digital opportunities, he referred to C. K. Prahalad’s concept of investment from “bottom of the pyramid” markets. Specifically, Prahalad contends that in order for developing nations to attain financial independence and sustainable growth, multinational corporations (MNCs) must view them as viable markets for products and services. If private investors and MNCs adopt a strategy of bringing the poor into the market, economic acceleration and infrastructure development will occur. In essence, Prahalad’s model centers on transitioning the poor into consumers of affordable, available and accessible goods and services provided by MNCs who offer products such as low-cost wireless networks and access devices.

According to Prahalad, if MNCs perceive bottom of the pyramid markets as potential business opportunities with competitive advantages and commit to investing in implementing ICT in these regions, several key benefits will emerge:

1. Reduction in the literacy gap

2. Decrease in infrastructure gaps in rural areas linking the informal economy to established markets and creating distribution channels

3. Promotion of e-commerce that reduces the need for intermediaries and provides transparency, thereby reducing corruption

See "What Works: Serving the Poor Profitably" by C. K. Prahalad.

Prahalad’s solution seems to benefit MNCs as much as people, but is it hopelessly optimistic? Is it realistic for MNCs to enter developing areas and accommodate varying incomes and technical requirements by shifting price, volume and distribution for their products? Further, although ICT can be a tremendous tool for enabling education and commerce, I wonder what the downside of such a paradigm would be and what standards would be in place to prevent the widespread exploitation of consumers from multinationals bent on generating profits first and sustainability second?

Embedded Observation

In the week 5 article “G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide”, Danah Boyd presents a new methodology for social system design centered on “embedded observation”, which is the process of designers engaging in the culture of their users. In this sense, they perform a sort of ethnography, whereby “becoming embedded in the culture they create allows an unprecedented understanding of the people and semantic workings of the site.” http://www.danah.org/papers/Etech2006.html

Boyd’s theory of embedded observation focuses on user centered design, wherein designers and developers understand the culture of their users and actually shape the system architecture to support the culture. In doing so, “their efforts at understanding culture and evolving the design alongside it create a meaningful bond between the users and the designers” (Boyd, 2006). However, designing with an embedded observation framework has its limitations, mostly pertaining to scale as sites exponentially grow and simultaneously, various sub-cultures are created, each with their own design implications. As the user culture evolves and diversifies, designers are challenged with staying technologically relevant with the community of users as cultural issues arise, such as linguistic differences, morality conflicts (obscenity, pornography), etc. In response to these obstacles, Boyd advocates diversifying the development, design and customer support staff and enabling users to personalize, manage and culturize their own online space to avoid cultural collisions while still presenting opportunities for “accidental socialization.”

What websites successfully leverage “embedded design” and which do you think struggle with the issue of emergent online cultures? Do you think the web has homogenized online communities, or instead are we seeing a surfacing of clusters, or nodes of heterogeneous communities? Can technology adequately accommodate the influx of social and cultural nuances and values that color the web and is this even the role of technology in the web 2.0 world?

The Long Tail

Week five's readings included an article by Quintarelli entitled "Folksonomies: power to the people" where he briefly touched on a new technical, economic and social phenomenon called the long tail when describing broad folksonomies (see page 7). In brief, the long tail was coined by Chris Anderson (editor-in-chief of "Wired" magazine) and refers to the concept “wherein our culture and economy is increasingly moving away from a focus on a relatively small number of ‘hits’ (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail” (Anderson, 2004). See Chris’ blog for more information on this trend.

The niche markets that make up the long tail provide huge market potential. Take Amazon for example – as a megastore, there is great demand, or hits for popular items (representing the spike in the curve) but there is perhaps even more demand for less popular, narrow target items, representing the niche market and in effect, the long tail. Anderson predicts that the potential size of many small, niche markets that don't individually sell well enough for traditional retail may ultimately rival that of the existing large market in the e-commerce space. Resultantly, these niche goods can be even more economically viable then mainstream goods thanks to the Internet’s robust supply chain distribution and sale channels.

So what does the long tail mean for the Web’s dominant, broad-based retailers? In the case of Amazon, it appears that much of their current success is due to the long tail effect. Since their inception, they have catered to micro-markets and as a result, successfully leveraged this phenomenon as part of their economy of scale while reaching out to their broad user base. Do you think that more online retailers will begin to shift their business models to accommodate the long tail consumers? Will systems that impede custom, niche goods, services and content survive in the web 2.0 world?