The transformational potential of computer-assisted brains

My grandparents witnessed massive technology changes in energy and transportation, from steam to nuclear power, and horse and buggy to lunar rovers. My generation experienced the rise of networking and information technology. The generation to come is poised to encounter human transformation. The visions that many of us touted in the early days of ubiquitous/pervasive computing have largely come to pass in this age of IoT, and now sensors and interfaces of all kinds are embedded in smart devices across our environments that draw very little power and connect seamlessly to widespread networking infrastructure. Where do we go next? The crux of much of this will be in how this information connects to people, and how our perception, cognition, and identity effectively expand beyond our corporeal confines. Illustrated by the above speculations, this talk will explore the augmented human as viewed through the lens of recent projects happening in my Responsive Environments research group that involve sensing at various scales in the physical world (wearables, smart buildings, connected landscapes, and space missions) and how this information connects to people in different ways. Examples will include viewing smart buildings as ‘prosthetic’ extensions of their inhabitants, manifesting sensed or inferred phenomena in virtual analog environments, and interfaces modulated by user attention and focus or augmented by real-time AI.