Management Information Systems - The Technology-based Home of the Future.

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

410: DLC Spring 2003 Final Research Paper Page of

UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNE

CMPS / ECBU 410: Management Information Systems

The Technology-based Home of the Future

Prepared by

Bruce D. Hill

Spring 2003

Instructor: Dr. Seta Whitby

Table of Contents

Tomorrows Home Today

As we look at what the future might bring, in terms of the technology revolution, there are a number of issues we must address before we can begin to visualize the possibilities. There appear to be several in academia with varying ideas of what the future home should look like. According to Kent Larson, who has practiced architecture in New York City since 1981 (and is on the MIT Home of the Future Consortium team) believes that the future homebuyer will design, and purchase, their home online. The home will come in prefabricated modules. Delivery will take place within four weeks, and a crew of three will do the completion in another two weeks. In his article “The Home of the Future” he states,

Living in their new home takes some getting used to. With sensor arrays and digital displays embedded into most surfaces, the home begins to discover their patterns of activity and tries to anticipate what they might need or want…It adjusts the ambient light for reading a book in the afternoon, keeps tuna fish on hand in the pantry, monitors their nutrition, and suggests new films that they may enjoy. (62)

He suggests that this is simply just the way it will be, given that larger, technology driven, companies are looking at entering the housing market. At no time in his article does he look at the issues involved in these new technologies.

On the other hand, Stephan S, Intille, a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences, working with the team on the MIT Home of the Future Consortium looks at several issues concerning these new technologies. In his article “Designing a Home of the Future”, he addresses issues such as whether or not the future home should automatically make all of the adjustments to the environment, or perhaps there is a better way. That way is to have the technology be pervasive rather than intrusive. He states, “Technology should require human effort in ways that keep life as mentally and physically challenging as possible as people age” (81).

By addressing some of these issues as he does, he looks at the home of the future as something that should allow us to grow rather than making everything automatic so that we deteriorate both mentally and physically.

Finally, yet another project at Georgia Institute of Technology, is looking into the home of the future as one that not only serves the “technophiles” who have plenty of money to spend on gadgets, but rather as one that can assist seniors to live longer fuller lives. As author W. Wyat Gibbs states in his article “As We May Live”,

Maynett ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Maynett [a Ph.D degree in Computer Science working on “The Aware Home” project] …who suggested the focus be on the aged, spends half her time working with caregivers and anthropologist to figure out what problems tend to force seniors from their homes and what annoyances and invasions of privacy they might trade to postpone that. (p37)

This statement says that this project is looking into the privacy of the people that they feel could benefit greatly from new technologies.

From the quotes in these three articles, we can see that there are some in academia who simply feel that new technologies in homes will do every thing for us. While others believe that, there may be a better way to incorporate technologies into our homes. It should also be stated that in order for these homes to function in the most effective way—strictly from a technological perspective—they would control every aspect in our home lives. In order to do this, all information that the monitors receive would be fed continuously to databases on the internet that would make the adjustments. This would lead to a number of issues concerning our personal privacies as well as ethical issues.

The Issues

Let us begin by looking at Mr. Larson’s point of view that the home will control us, as opposed to us controlling the home. First, what would happen if an unscrupulous character broke into the database that has all of our personal information on it? I am not just talking about things like our credit card numbers and our social security numbers. Remember, these technologies monitor our every movement within our own homes, so these criminals would know every personal thing about us. This would be like having a private eye watching everything we do 24 hours a day and reporting that to someone else. Alternatively, perhaps all of our information is looked at legally by government agencies. This would be an opportunity in the making for easy invasion of privacy.

Secondly, we need to consider how ethical it would be for us to put our parents or grandparents in one of these homes so that we can make their lives easier—thereby making our lives easier. Who has the right to tell someone else they must live being monitored 24 hours a day? Furthermore, these technologies are frightening to some older segments of society. Should we put them into one of these homes just so they can live longer and yet be uncomfortable with their surroundings?

Next, what about the ethical issue of these new technologies (that assist people in living longer) that cost so much? Is it morally right for those with money to have that advantage or is it society’s responsibility to see that all have the same opportunity to live longer.

Finally, what about the fact that as technology has made our lives easier; many more people are less healthy than they used to be. What would happen if in twenty or thirty years—after people have had their homes do everything for them—studies show that these technologies actually are responsible for shortening our lives.

These are just some of the general issues facing how intrusive we want technology to be. I am certain that as time goes on, and many more of these types of technologies are incorporated into our lives, there will be numerous specific issues that have to be dealt with. However, until that day arrives, we have to look at it from the general point of view.

Addressing the Issues

As stated earlier, Kent Larson did not look at any of these issues in his article. Perhaps it is because his background is in architecture and he was looking at technology strictly from that point of view. On the other hand, maybe because he is on the same project team with Stephan S. Intille, and he feels that Mr. Intille is the “issue monitor” on the project and he strictly is looking at from an architectural perspective. However, Mr. Larson should also be concerned with these personal freedom and ethicality issues if his vision is ever going to be reality.

Concerning Mr. Intille’s article, I believe that in the “MIT Home of the Future”, they are looking in the right direction to address—and find answers—to some of these questions. He states, “We are designing and building prototypes demonstrating how to create environments that help people

Live long and healthy lives in their homes
Reduce resource consumption
Integrate learning into their everyday activity in the home” (81).

I think that by conducting these types of experiments prior to incorporating the technologies into new homes, many of the questions in the issues section of this paper can be answered. For instance, this particular project can help to understand how to avoid the issues of having technology doing everything for us that we become a society of less healthy people. Yet these same technologies can add years to our lives by monitoring us. I think this is a bit ironic. Perhaps these types of experiments will give us the best of both worlds. By allowing us to learn, it will keep us mentally fit. By helping us to eat healthier, it will keep us more physically fit, and by monitoring our bodies, it will allow us to seek medical help much sooner thereby increasing our lifespan.

Finally, looking at Mr. Gibbs article concerning the project at Georgia Institute of Technology, they are also attempting to answer some of these questions. He states, “The research team eventually decided that those who most need the home of the future are people of the past—not the rich gadget nuts who typically purchase smart homes but rather marginally infirm seniors” (37). It appears that they are addressing some of the pertinent issues also. Perhaps this team is looking into making these life-extending technologies more reasonably priced so that the masses can benefit rather than just the rich. Also, by reviewing the quote by Dr. Mynatt concerning what these seniors are willing to trade off for living longer shows that the team is also addressing the issue of what they seniors think about these technologies (and making them more comfortable with them) rather than just saying these technologies will help you, now use them.

Conclusion

When I chose the “Technology-based Home of the Future” for my research project, I did so because I thought that it would be interesting since I have an extensive background in the building industry. I expected the issues to strictly be those that Kent Larson addressed in his article. I was incredibly surprised when I read the other articles to see the personal freedom and ethical issues that this topic had to address. This research really opened up my mind and gave me a completely new perspective on this topic.

That being said, after reading the articles several times, and reflecting over the period of the semester on these issues, I can see that there needs to be many questions answered before the home of the future can incorporate all of the technologies that are currently available, let alone the new ones that will be here in the future. Not just the technical questions of how to incorporate new technologies, but more importantly the issues stated in this paper.

I think that these teams are on the right track by addressing these issues in these laboratory settings to see how individuals will handle the intrusiveness of these technologies even though they will certainly make our lives easier. Nevertheless, easier does not necessarily mean better. If these technologies intrude on our personal freedom, or jeopardize them in any way, I am not so sure that we will embrace them even though they may make our lives easier.

I think that all of may embrace these new technologies based on our own terms. Some of us may be willing to give up more of our freedom, to make our home lives easier, while others may not want to give up the personal freedoms and privacy that it will require to do so. We will all have our own particular point where we will say stop, and that point is when we start to leave our comfort zone. In addition, in some cases (when we are making these decisions for our parents or grandparents) these technologies will require us to make some moral judgments in certain cases. This is where the issues become very tough because we may have to weigh the possible outcomes and make certain moral tradeoffs such as the lesser of two evils for example.

In conclusion, I think that there will be no cookie cutter home of the future. I think that all of us will have to decide what the best is for us and our loved ones based on a number of factors. Only after we weigh all of those factors will we be able to choose the technologies that will fit our own personalities the best.