At the end of the 1990s ‘Ambient Intelligence’ emerged as a new paradigm on the technological world of the (near) future. This vision was developed by Philips and soon embraced by the European Commission. In the decade since both theories and early examples of Ambient Intelligence technologies have blossomed, leading to a dynamic and diversified, yet also more muddy concept of the networked, personalized technological world to come. In this talk we will trace some of the key ideas and core technological trends of the Ambient Intelligence vision. These include an emphasis on personalization, embedding technologies into the background of everyday contexts, and an increasingly proactive role for technologies in terms of service and information delivery.

What do these trends and ideas mean for the everyday world in which Ambient Intelligence technologies will become ingrained? In the second part of this talk we will evaluate both the practical implications of the realization of Ambient Intelligence, and its more fundamental effects on the social world we inhabit as individuals on a daily basis. What kind of (social) world does the Ambient Intelligence vision predict? And how would living in such a world affect our daily lives, our interactions with one another, and our relationships, both with one another and with the technologies that surround us?