Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
some kind of intelligence, or even consciousness. Based on an out-
moded modernist conception of cognition as an interior process,
Artificial Intelligence, at least as it was originally understood, has
been largely discredited.
10
But more recent developments, many of
which came out of AI, are presenting us with objects and technolo-
gies that can act, communicate, signify and participate, even if these
capacities do not seem to involve anything like human intelligence or
consciousness. Examples include recent research into developing
simple forms of intelligent behaviour by combining robotics with
neural networks, as undertaken by computer scientist Rodney Brooks
at MIT.
It is unlikely that, in the foreseeable future, even minimally intelli-
gent robots are going to trouble our everyday lives. By contrast, far
smaller and less potentially impressive developments are already
provoking questions about the capacity for technology to act and
participate. Recently a new buzz phrase has been coined: the 'Internet
of Things' refers to the new world of networked and interconnected
devices, which can communicate with each other and with other
systems and entities.
11
For example, Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) is a new technology that allows data to be automatically sent
from objects that contain RFID tags (illus. 52). Examples of its use
include tagging of topics in libraries that allow security systems to
check whether topics have been issued when they leave the library
52 RFID in a form of a sticker with
bar code on the opposite side,
security chip for a DVD.
