Summary
Visions of ambient intelligence and ubiquitous computing involve integrating tiny microelectronic processors and sensors into everyday objects in order to make them “smart.” Smart things can explore their environment, communicate with other smart things, and interact with humans, therefore helping users to cope with their tasks in new, intuitive ways. Although many concepts have already been tested out as prototypes in field trials, the repercussions of such extensive integration of computer technology into our everyday lives are difficult to predict. This contribution is a first attempt to classify the social, economic, and ethical implications of this development.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Weiser, M. (1991) The Computer for the 21st Century. Scientific American, 265(3):66–75, September 1991.
Ahola, J. (2001) Ambient Intelligence, ERCIM News, No 47, October 2001.
Coroama, V., Röthenbacher, F. (2003) The Chatty Environment — Providing Everyday Independence to the Visually Impaired. In: The 2nd International Workshop on Ubiquitous Computing for Pervasive Healthcare Applications (UbiHealth2003), October 2003. Available at www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/publ/papers/ubicomp2003-hc.pdf.
Moore, G.E. (1965) Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. Electronics, 38:114–117, April 1965.
Finkenzeller, K. (2003) RFID-Handbook. John, Wiley & Sons, 2nd edition.
Adamowsky, N. (2000) Kulturelle Relevanz. Ladenburger Diskurs “Ubiquitous Computing”, February 2000. Available at www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/events/slides/adamowldbg.pdf.
Araya, A.A. (1995) Questioning Ubiquitous Computing. In: Proceedings of the 1995 ACM 23rd Annual Conference on Computer Science. ACM Press, 1995. Available at doi.acm.org/10.1145/259526.259560.
Lucky, R. (1999) Everything will be connected to everything else. Connections. IEEE Spectrum, March 1999. Available at www.argreenhouse.com/papers/rlucky/spectrum/connect.shtml.
Thackara, J. (2001) The design challenge of pervasive computing. Interactions, 8(3):46–52, May 2001. Available at doi.acm.org/10.1145/369825.369832.
Weiser, M. (1993) Ubiquitous Computing. IEEE Computer, 26(10):71–72, October 1993.
Siegele, L. (2002) How about now? A survey of the real-time economy. The Economist, 362(8257):3–18, January 2002.
Lee, H.L., Padmanabhan, V., Whang, S. (1997) The Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains. MIT Sloan Management Review, 38(3):93–102, Spring 1997.
Joshi, Y.V. (2000) Information Visibility and its Effect on Supply Chain Dynamics. Master’s Thesis, MIT, June 2000.
Fleisch, E. (2002) Von der Vernetzung von Unternehmen zur Vernutzung von Dingen. In: Schögel, M., Tomczak, T., Belz, C. (eds) (2002) Roadm@p to E-Business — Wie Unternehmen das Internet erfolgreich nutzen. Thexis, St. Gallen, pp 270–284.
Ferguson, G.T. (2002) Have Your Objects Call My Objects. Harvard Business Review, 80(6):138–144, June 2002.
Skiera, B., Spann, M. (2002) Preisdifferenzierung im Internet. In: Schögel, M., Tomczak, T., Belz, C. (eds) (2002) Roadm@p to E-Business — Wie Unternehmen das Internet erfolgreich nutzen. Thexis, St. Gallen, pp 270–284.
Siegele, L. (2002) Tante Emma lebt. Die Zeit, (42):27, October 2002.
USA Today (2000) Amazon May Spell End for “Dynamic” Pricing. Associated Press. September 29, 2000.
Accenture Technology Labs (2001) Silent Commerce. Available at www. accenture. com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=services/technology/vision/silent commerce. xml.
Maeder, T. (2002) What Barbie Wants, Barbie Gets. Wired Magazine, 10(1), January 2002.
Akerlof, G. (1970) The Market for Lemons: Qualitative Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), pp 488–500.
Reuters (2003) This DVD Will Self-Destruct. Wired News, May 16, 2003. Available at www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58883,00.html.
Talbott, S. (2000) The Trouble With Ubiquitous Technology Pushers, or: Why We’d Be Better Off without the MIT Media Lab. NetFuture: Technology and Human Responsibility. Available at www.netfuture.org/2000/Jan0600 100.html#3.
Cochrane, P. (2000) Head to Head. Sovereign Magazine, pp 56–57, March 2000.
Rotenberg, M. (2001) Testimony and Statement for the Record. Hearing on Privacy in the Commercial World before the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, U.S. House of Representatives, March 2001. Available at www.epic.org/privacy/testimony 0301.html.
Lessig, L. (1999) Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Basic Books, New York NY, 1999.
Westin, A.F. (1967) Privacy and Freedom. Atheneum, New York NY, 1967.
Warren, S., Brandeis, L. (1890) The Right to Privacy. Harvard Law Review, 4(1):193–220, December 1890.
Marx, G.T. (2001) Murky Conceptual Waters: The Public and the Private. Ethics and Information Technology, 3(3):157–169, July 2001.
Mayo, R.N. (2001) The Factoids Project. July 2001. Available at www.research.compaq.com/wrl/techreports/abstracts/TN-60.html.
Rhodes, B. (1997) The Wearable Remembrance Agent: A System for Augmented Memory. Personal Technologies Journal. Special Issue on Wearable Computing, 1:218–224, January 1997.
O’Harrow, Jr. R. (2001) Prozac Maker Reveals Patient E-Mail Addresses. The Washington Post, July 2001.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Bantam Books, New York. August 1998.
Nagel, K.S., Kidd, C.D., O’Connell, T., Day, A., Abowd, G.D. (2001) Family Intercom: Developing a Context-Aware Audio Communication System. In: Abowd, G.D. et al [52], pp 176–183.
Westerlund, B., Lindquist, S., Sundblad, Y. (2001) Cooperative Design of Communication Support for and with Families in Stockholm, September 2001. Available at interliving.kth.se/papers.html.
Rhodes, B., Minar, N., Weaver, J. (1999) Wearable Computing Meets Ubiquitous Computing — Reaping the Best of Both Worlds. In: Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC’ 99), San Francisco CA, October 1999, pp 141–149.
Council of Europe (2001) Convention on Cybercrime. ETS No 185. Available at conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/185.htm, November 2001.
Estrin, D., Culler, D., Pister, K., Sukhatme, G. (2002) Connecting the Physical World with Pervasive Networks. IEEE Pervasive Computing — Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems, 1(1):59–69, January 2002.
Satyanarayanan, M. (2001) Pervasive Computing: Vision and Challenges. IEEE Personal Communications, 8(4):10–17, August 2001.
Bitlaw.com (2000) Some well publicized examples of domain names disputes. See www.bitlaw.com/internet/domain.html#disputes.
Domain Name Handbook (2003) Domain Dispute Index. See www.domainhandbook.com/dd.html.
Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF (2003) Blue Ribbon Campaign for free speech online. See www.eff.org/br/.
Lyon, D. (2001) Facing the Future: Seeking Ethics for Everyday Surveillance. Ethics and Information Technology, 3(3):171–180, July 2001.
Gonçalves, D.J. (2001) Ubiquitous Computing and AI Towards an Inclusive Society. In: Heller et al [53], pp 37–40.
Makris, P. (2001) Accessibility of Ubiquitous Computing: Providing for the Elderly. In: Heller et al [53].
Stephanidis, C. (2001) Towards Universal Access in the Information Society. In: Heller et al [53].
Adamowsky, N. (2003) Smarte Götter und magische Maschinen — zur Virulenz vormoderner Argumentationsmuster in Ubiquitous-Computing-Visionen. In: Mattern, F. [54], pp 231–247.
Winner, L. (1999) The Voluntary Complexity Movement. NetFuture: Technology and Human Responsibility, September 1999. Available at www.netfuture.org/1999/Sep1499 94.html#3.
Hilty, L., Behrendt, S., Binswanger, M., Bruinink, A., Erdmann, L., Fröhlich, J., Köhler, A., Kuster, N., Som, C., Würtenberger, F. (2003) Das Vorsorgeprinzip in der Informationsgesellschaft. Auswirkungen des Pervasive Computing auf Gesundheit und Umwelt. Studie des Zentrums für Technologiefolgen-Abschätzung TA-SWISS, TA 46/2003, August 2003.
Dryer, D.C., Eisbach, C., Ark, W.S. (1999) At what cost pervasive? A social computing view of mobile computing systems. IBM Systems Journal, 38(4):652–676.
Dick, P.K. (1956) Minority Report. Fantastic Universe, January 1956.
Abowd, G.D., Brumitt, B., Shafer, S. (eds) (2001) Ubicomp 2001: Ubiquitous Computing. Prooceedings Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 2201, Springer-Verlag.
Heller, R., Jorge, J., Guedj, R. (eds) (2001) Proceedings of the 2001 EC/NSF Workshop on Universal Accessibility of Ubiquitous Computing: Providing for the Elderly, Alcáacer do Sal, Portugal, May 2001, ACM Press. See also virtual.inesc.pt/wuauc01/.
Mattern, F. (eds) (2003) Total vernetzt: Szenarien einer informatisierten Welt. Springer-Verlag, 2003.
IBM Global Services (2001) Transforming the appliance industry. Switching on revenue streams in services. White Paper, 2001.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bohn, J., Coroamă, V., Langheinrich, M., Mattern, F., Rohs, M. (2005). Social, Economic, and Ethical Implications of Ambient Intelligence and Ubiquitous Computing. In: Weber, W., Rabaey, J.M., Aarts, E. (eds) Ambient Intelligence. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-27139-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-27139-2_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23867-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-27139-0
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)