Is the Intelligent Environment Smart Enough?

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is considered a likely future embodiment of the information society, according to development scenarios proposed worldwide. With reference to the scenarios developed in Europe by the Information Society Technology Advisory Group (ISTAG), this position paper maintains that, up to now, the attention has been more on the smart objects that are supposed to populate the environment and their interfaces than on the “intelligence” of the entire system. The latter is of paramount importance if users are to be served according to the specifications of the AmI environments. Correspondingly, the current notion of Design for All needs to be revised in order to take into account the additional complexity of the emerging information society. Examples of the main points to be considered are offered in order to elicit discussion.