By Isabelle Robinson, M.Sc.Sep 21 2018.jpg)
Image credits Shutterstock/Who is Danny
There are many emerging applications for artificial intelligence. It is now more likely that people will see AI integrated systems around their homes. This article will delve into the ways that artificial intelligence can be used in robotic assistants.
Security and Surveillance
This is the obvious choice when asked for uses of AI around the home. There are now many companies which use their own versions of AI to make people feel safer in their homes. One of those companies is the Berlin-based startup BuddyGuard who recently unveiled its new AI integrated home security camera called Flare. Like many other startups, the project was originally funded via crowdsourcing, but is now able to go head-to-head with similar products on the market such as Google’s Nest Cam. Unlike the Google version, Flare is an intelligent security camera, capable of recognizing faces as well as detecting suspicious sounds before alerting the home owner in the event of intruders.
Even more impressive than this is Deep Sentinel’s AI-powered home security system. Deep Sentinel have boasted that the system is able to “predict and disrupt crimes before they occur” by using their optimized AI technology. This is achieved using a mixture of neural networks, computer vision and deep learning.
Deep Sentinel claim that they hope to expand the home security market by making the security line the perimeter of the property. At the moment, most home security and surveillance companies treat the security line as the perimeter of the home itself. This is becoming more and more of a problem as thieves begin to steal items that are not in the home itself such as Amazon delivery packages and garden furniture.
Domestic and Cleaning
A recent Stanford report named “Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030” has predicted that AI technology integrated products would enable humans to adopt domestic robots by 2030. AI robotic technologies such as speech recognition, natural language understanding, and image labeling have already begun to make their way into our homes.
“Early expectations that many new applications would be found for home robots have not materialized. Robot vacuum cleaners are restricted to localized flat areas, while real homes have lots of single steps, and often staircases; there has been very little research on robot mobility inside real homes. Hardware platforms remain challenging to build, and there are few applications that people want enough to buy.”
Though with this, new privacy and ethics concerns have arisen as to what data AI technologies should be allowed to collect. In July 2017, the iRobot’s Roomba was investigated for collecting data on the size and dimensions of it’s user’s homes. This obviously caused a backlash from users who were concerned that home-mapping may pose a personal security concern.
Personal Data Issues
The criticism of AI technologies entering people’s homes has long been discussed in the community. While originally targeted at convenience, it is simple enough to see how the collection of learning data could be used for more sinister purposes. These include:
- Home-mapping to determine the value of homes.
- Lawn cutting robots collecting data about size and value of the user’s property.
- Home assistants collecting data on things you search for and selling it to marketers.
- AI technology in toys could collect data on the number and kinds of interactions that children are having with certain toys. This could be used to create new toys or to market similar toys to children.
While home robots can be used for many purposes and have some very positive outcomes, the public will demand regulations and rules to be set in place before they are likely to invite such technologies into their homes.
This story is reprinted from material from techemergence.com, with editorial changes made by AZo Network. The original article can be found here.
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