The Network of Things: People Included

In the first part of this talk we survey our and others research efforts on human-computer interaction: natural, affective and social interactions. The assumption is that sensor-equipped environments are able to detect, interpret and anticipate our intentions and feelings. This allows more natural interaction between humans and intelligent environments that support human activity. However, it also allows these environments to collect more information about their human partners than these human partners may find desirable. Environments collect our lives, environments process our lives. Humans are becoming part of the 'Network of Things'. Their actions and activities are detected, anticipated and interpreted. The environment may provide alerts and suggestions to the user, it may also take decisions in the interest of the owner of the environment or in the interest of the user; and, it may be the case that the user does not fully understand the decisions that are made or simply does not agree with them. In the second part of our presentation we look at situations where it is quite acceptable or even desirable that part of the intentions and feelings of an interacting partner remains hidden for the other. The 'other' can be a human partner, but also a virtual human partner, a social robot, or a socially intelligent networked environment. Hiding information, not giving away yourselves, not always telling what you think, is natural behavior. It occurs in everyday life, but also in sports and entertainment situations. Non-cooperative behavior is often more natural than cooperative behavior. In this talk we will also discuss the many useful uses of non-cooperative behavior - for example in training and simulation environments - both from the point of view of a smart environment and from the point of view of human partners, users, or inhabitants of smart environments.