Room service, AI-style

Can a room be intelligent? The article presents the thoughts and work of four people who not only believe the answer is yes, but are working towards making this happen. It discusses insights gleaned from work at the Intelligent Room project at the MIT AI Lab. In contrast to the two intelligent rooms built in the MIT AI Lab's quarters in an otherwise (comparatively) mundane office building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it also considers experiences making an entire house in Colorado behave intelligently. The experiences of the chief systems architect for the Gates Estate, Bill Gates' well-publicized 66,000 square foot new home in Medina, Washington, are also discussed. Finally, some of the functionalities that we would want intelligent rooms with large numbers of people-such as lecture halls and conference venues-to possess, are presented.