Arithmetic Theory of Elliptic Curves

Book Preface

This volume in the Lecture Notes of Artificial Intelligence represents the first book on human computing. We introduced the notion of human computing in 2006 and organized two events that were meant to explain this notion and the research conducted worldwide in the context of this notion.

The first of these events was a Special Session on Human Computing that took place during the Eighth International ACM Conference on Multimodal Interfaces (ICMI 2006), held in Banff, Canada, on November 3, 2006. The theme of the conference was multimodal collaboration and our Special Session on Human Computing was a natural extension of the discussion on this theme. We are grateful to the organizers of ICMI 2006 for supporting our efforts to organize this Special Session during the conference.

The second event in question was a Workshop on AI for Human Computing organized in conjunction with the 20th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2007), held in Hyderabad (India), on January 6, 2007. The main theme of IJCAI 2007 was AI and its benefits to society. Our workshop presented a vision of the future of computing technology in which AI, in particular machine learning and agent technology, plays an essential role. We want to thank the organizers of IJCAI 2007 for their support in the organization of the Workshop on AI for Human Computing.

A large number of the contributions in this book are updated and extended versions of the papers presented during these two events. In order to obtain a more complete overview of research efforts in the field of human computing, a number of additional invited contributions are included in this book on AI for human computing.

One of the contributions in this volume starts with the observation that humans are social beings. Unfortunately, it is exceptional when we can say that a particular computer system, a computer application, or a human – computer interface has been designed from this point of view. Rather, we talk about users that have to perform tasks in a way that is prescribed by the computer. However, when we take the point of view of designing systems for social beings, we should talk rather about partners or participants instead of users, and when we do so, it is also the computer or a computer-supported environment that plays the role of a partner or a participant.

Human computing, as advocated and illustrated in this volume, aims at making computing devices and smart environments social partners of humans interacting with these devices or inhabiting these environments. These devices and environments need to understand what exactly the specifics of the current interaction flow and the surrounding environment are. This understanding allows for anticipatory and proactive feedback and real-time, unobtrusive support of human activities in the environment.