Seminar Computer Science - Hamed Alavi

Title: The Future of Human-Building Interaction

Abstract:

For centuries, something as simple as opening or closing a window has provided remarkably sophisticated opportunities to regulate temperature, light, air quality, acoustics, privacy, and even social relations between inside and outside. The introduction of artificial intelligence in buildings, however, is about to change all of this. What will be the consequences of truly smart buildings on the humans who inhabit them? How do we envision the future of human interactive experiences with and within built environments of the future that embody intelligence and new forms of interactivity? To what extent are we prepared to give up control over our living and working environments to intelligent automation systems, and what are the psychological implications of that? These and many other questions that embody the complexity of human experiences in the built environments of the future have been the motivations for a new multidisciplinary domain of research to emerge at the intersection of Computer Sciences, Architecture and Psychology. I'll talk about this new area of research called Human-Building Interaction (HBI) and present some of the HBI projects that I have been leading at the University of Fribourg and University College London over the last 5 years.