Artificial Intelligence Raining from “The Cloud” on Ubiquitous Computers!

Introduction

Welcome again! Today, we’re having a little chat about “Cloud Computing and its relation to both AI and Ubiquitous Computing”, a very interesting topic to me!

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing simply means that the programs you run and the data you store, are somewhere in a server around the world. You won’t bother yourself by storing any information on your personal computer or even use it to run a complicated program that requires sophisticated computers. Your personal computer will barely do nothing but upload the information to be processed or download the information you need to access. All the programs you will use will be web-based via the internet. Cloud computing is considered the paradigm shift following the shift from mainframe to client–server in the early 1980s.

If you look around you, you will figure out that cloud computing is taking over. Many of the desktop applications are turning to be web applications, as well as current Web Applications are getting more powerful. What really make good use of cloud computing nowadays are mobile cell phones, since they have relatively small processing powers and thus favor a lot from processing on the cloud instead. To understand more about the pros and cons of cloud computing visit this link.

Figure Illustrating Cloud Computing - Source : http://www.briankeithmay.com

The Effect of Cloud Computing on Computer Hardware Industry

I think that, Cloud Computing will lead to polarizing the computer hardware industry to 2 distinct poles: one pole is the giant servers that contain all the data and programs and work out all the processing of the clouds, and the other pole is the simple computer terminals with relatively minimal storage and processing power which use the clouds as their main storage and computation resource. This means that the hardware industry will not care about advancing personal computers’ hardware like it did before (as everything is done in the cloud)

AI as cloud-based services

Google has launched the cloud-based service Google Predication API that provides a simple way for developers to create software that learns how to handle incoming data. For example, the Google-hosted algorithms could be trained to sort e-mails into categories for “complaints” and “praise” using a dataset that provides many examples of both kinds. Future e-mails could then be screened by software using that API, and handled accordingly. (Technology Review Reference)

On the other hand, AI Solver Studios said they will be rolling out cloud computing services to allow instant access beside their desktop application AI Solver Studio. AI Solver Studio is a unique pattern recognition application that deals with finding optimal solutions to classification problems and uses several powerful and proven artificial intelligence techniques including neural networks, genetic programming and genetic algorithms.

How can Cloud Computing improve AI

Since Cloud Computing emphasizes that all the data as well as the programs running are stored somewhere in a cloud, this means that a large amount of data can be used for analysis and use by AI programs in order to perform data mining or other AI-related techniques to deduce useful information.

For example, consider the WordPress.com application, in which you have your own capacity to store on it what you need of posts and multimedia. If the data and the behavior of users – such as you – weren’t all stored in the cloud of WordPress.com, not enough data will be available to be used for AI purposes.

Thus I consider Cloud Computing to enhance the performance of AI by providing a lot of Data to be used by AI techniques.

Cloud Computing and Ubiquitous Computing

Cloud Computing is essential for Ubiquitous Computing (see my previous post to know more about it) to flourish. This is because most Ubiquitous computers will suffer from relatively limited hardware resources (due to their ubiquitous nature), this will make them really favor from the resources on a cloud in the internet.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that merging the 2 trends (Ubiquitous and Cloud Computing) and supporting them with AI will result in tremendous technological advances. I think I will be talking about them more in the future!

Ubiquitous Computing and AI

Introduction

OK !, Today I give a very big picture about that crucial term called “Ubiquitous Computing” and it’s relation to AI (YES, I mean Artificial Intelligence) . Actually, it’s a shame that any AI geek doesn’t know it. Just remember that, the word “Ubiquitous” means “Existing or being everywhere, or in all places, at the same time”.

What is Ubiquitous Computing?

I can say about Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) as “The Incorporation of computers into the background of human life without any physical interaction with them”. It’s considered the future third era of computing where the first era was the mainframes era and the second era is the personal computers era (what we are living now).   The term Ubiquitous Computing – also known as Calm Technology- was found by Mark Weiser -The father of Ubiquitous Computing- in the late 80s (so it’s not a new thing).

Ubiquitous Computing involves tens, hundreds or even thousands of different sized (often tiny) computers sensing the environment, deducing stuff, communicating and performing actions to help a human without actually using any interface. Thousands of computers should be embedded in everyday’s objects such as paper, pens, books, doors, buildings, walls, food containers, clothes, furniture, equipment … etc. to maintain a human’s life.

Even the most powerful notebook computer, with access to a worldwide information network, still focuses attention on a single box (the computer itself). However, Ubiquitous Computing means no human attention to any computer interface when using it. Take a look at motors technology which is considered ubiquitous; a glance through the shop manual of a typical automobile, for example, reveals twenty-two motors and twenty-five more solenoids. They start the engine, clean the windshield, lock and unlock the doors, and so on. By paying careful attention it might be possible to know whenever one activated a motor, but there would be no point to it. Similarly, computers in the Ubiquitous Computing era should be like that.

Suppose you want to lift a heavy object. You can call in your strong assistant to lift it for you, or you can be yourself made effortlessly, unconsciously, stronger and just lift it. There are times when both are good. Much of the past and current effort for better computers has been aimed at the former; ubiquitous computing aims at the latter.

An Example for life with Ubiquitous Computing.

AI and UbiComp ?

According to this essay, AI will play a major role in UbiComp in 3 different ways:

1. Ubiquitous Computing needs a transparent interface to work, which means a natural way for communication with human-kind. This involves a lot of artificial intelligence such as gesture recognition, sound and speech recognition and computer vision.
2. Ubiquitous Computing needs computers to be aware of their context such as location and time. Artificial Intelligence plays an important role in context awareness where it helps the computer perceive people’s location and generate proper service accordingly. For example, when you are at office, you may want to read some business reports, but when you go back home, you want to watch movie and enjoy coffee for a rest. These scenarios impose requirements to artificial intelligence agents.
3. Ubiquitous Computing will also favor from automated learning from their past experience and capturing people’s experience. Learning agents are introduced into this framework to perceive people’s behavior and make decision based on people’s preference.

References

Shang, Yu Liang, The Role and Possibility of Artificial Intelligence in Ubiquitous Computing, 1993

Mark Weiser, “The Computer for the Twenty-First Century,” Scientific American, pp. 94-10, September 1991

http://www.peterindia.net/UbiquitousComputingLinks.html