AI Controls Microsoft Research’s Smart Elevator

It seems that everything around us is developing its own intelligence. Microsoft Research now wants to take elevators to a complete different level, one where they can acually tell which floor you require, without you pressing a single button.

Bloomberg reports that a research team applied sensors to the front of elevators, which observed peoples’ actions while in and around the elevator. Without using any extra programming or facial recognition software, they just watched for three months.

In those three months the artificial intelligence system learned to interpret peoples’ behaviour and started to comprehend their intentions and desired destination. Once the learning portion was switched off after the three months, the AI system was able to understand where the user wanted to go and operated the elevator.

Head of Microsoft Research Peter Lee, told Bloomberg that the company is focusing on AI at the moment. He explains how the smart elevator could be used in practice:

“If your environment knows, for example, that it’s lunch time, that you had spoken yesterday about having lunch with a colleague on the second floor, and that it notices that you seem to be now leaving your office to go to the elevator, the elevator can be smart enough to take you, without your need to operate anything, to your colleague.”

Microsoft Research are dedicated to searching out the next big thing for computing: “We think in the future, you won’t be operating computers, but instead computers will be working on your behalf.”

[Image via nerdeky]

SOURCE: http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/01/20/microsoft-research-built-smart-elevator-uses-ai-figure-floor-youre-going/#!sI5N6