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Human-Computer Interfaces In The Iron Man Movie
I just saw the Iron Movie which, as expected, was replete with high-tech gadgetry and special effects. I also noticed that it specifically contained many examples of technology that embodied Human Computer Interfaces (HCI) concepts and themes, and I wanted to capture my observations and thoughts while the movie is (sort of) still fresh in my mind.
I myself have only seen the movie once, and if/when you see it you will notice that it has action pretty much from start to finish. So I apologize in advance if I don't get the details of the human-computer bits exactly right, or even if I saw one thing and imagined something different in my head. The items I will discuss were rather fleeting and subdued compared to the shots of high-tech armor and explosions they were wedged between. But they were cool in their own right and worthy of consideration.
Spoiler Disclaimer: I won't be discussing anything that is particularly revealing and certainly won't give away any significant parts of the plot, but I will include this disclaimer anyway.
Computers Are Ubiquitous
It should come as no surprise, in a movie featuring the comic character of Iron Man, that computers occur everywhere from bunkers and planes to his labs, home and of course his high-tech armor. HCI is not synonymous with ubiquitous computing, nor does it require it. However, they go tend to go hand-in-hand, since, the more computers become ubiquitous or pervasive in a person's environment, the more important is the requirement for intuitive, natural and effective interfaces.
Interfaces are overlaid on the environment
There were a few examples of this in Iron Man:
- The security access keypad to Tony Stark's personal lab appears on demand on the pane of glass next to the door.
- At one point in his lab Tony invokes a control keypad which appears on a black glass surface.
- Probably the best example is in his bedroom. When the (ahem) guest awakes in his bedroom, displays again materialize on the glass of the windows overlooking his beach view. It is hard to recall what they displayed, but they contained information relevant to the home, daily routine and environment.
- Last but not least, heads-up displays appear inside the helmet of the armor.
Icon Interfaces
In at least one case, the virtual overlaid control interface consists of icons rather than having the standard qwerty keyboard. There is a reason that fast food places have keyboards with specialized, iconic keys. It's not because the workers are not intelligent enough to think about the corresponding words. Rather it's not particularly efficient to have to think about them or worse to have to type them in. If an icon can simply, naturally, and effectively communicate an idea or command, then why require anything more?
Smart Home Control
Tony's home is controlled by an intelligent software assistant in the form of a virtual butler which accepts voice commands. Although it appears a bit too intelligent at times, this form of HCI has been developed and produced for years for smart home applications and will continue to be refined over time.
Anticipating user needs
Tony's software assistant also anticipates his needs and offers suggested courses of action it can take on Tony's behalf. It would desirable for any worthy software assistant to reduce the burden on it user by anticipating user actions and offering options, or even automatically performing actions which need no intervention or approval.
Mobile Agents
Rather than develop new programming for the armor, Tony downloads the home/lab butler program into the armor. Presumably it actually creates a copy since it makes little sense to leave the home unattended. But for Tony, the effect is that the software agent he is familiar with, and his probably extensive customized preferences and usage profile, seamlessly travel with him.
Ambient Information
In addition to whatever else the displays in the bedroom were conveying, they were also communicating information about the ambient environment including weather and surf conditions.
Intelligent Robotic Assistants
Tony Stark uses robotic assistants which are intelligent in the sense that they respond to his verbal commands and nonverbal cues. However, these robots are not android in their physical design, something which would not only require more suspension of belief but would also not be necessary or desirable for their dedicated purpose.
In the movie, Tony's robo-assistants mostly serve to provide comic relief. However, to casually dismiss them with this superficial analysis would be to ignore a couple of more subtle points they illustrate about human-computer interactions:
- The comic element of the robots stem from their failure in some cases to follow Tony's commands. This is precisely what we should expect in an intelligent artificial assistant. A software agent with a level of programming sophistication sufficient for exhibiting useful assistive behavior would necessarily need to work with incomplete and fuzzy information, and is further interacting with an imprecise and fuzzy (by computer standards) human being. So it is occasionally going to make mistakes in the same way that a human assistant would sometimes (or frequently, depending on the human) make mistakes.
- We see an example where the human being is probably exhibiting anthropomorphism (the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman entities) toward the robot. We hear Tony delivering fairly extended and human-like communication to a robot. Yet we have no other indication that the robot is comprehending more than the basic elements of the speech, or that it's behavior is really anything more naive and imperfect responses to the situation. Humans are well known to be capable of attributing intelligence and even feelings to inanimate objects, even those which lack intelligence by any standards. On one hand, this says more about the human than the agent, but on the other hand it serves as a sort of metric by which to judge the behavior of the agent. It has achieved some level of success if it invokes anthropomorphism in the human.
As you can see, the Iron Movie movie demonstrated a variety of human-computer interface concepts. It is not the first movie to include such concepts (Minority Report comes to mind), but I believe it does a fair job and in closing I will leave you with a thought: was this a conscious effort on the filmmakers part, or are these ideas starting to entrench themselves as memes in our subconscious?
rk
Photo Disclaimer: The photos are most just blog candy as it was not possible to to find actual shots of the displays I discussed.
