Online Paper: Franklin-AAAI98

Cooperating with people: The Intelligent Classroom

A common charge leveled against computers is that it is just too hard to figure how to get them to do what you what them to: "If computers are so smart, why can't they figure out what I want?" In building the Intelligent Classroom, we plan to demonstrate that a software system can actually do exactly this. Such a system would use cameras and microphones to sense a user's actions and then use the intentions it infers from those actions to decide what to do to best cooperate with the user. In the Intelligent Classroom, the speaker need not worry about how to operate the Classroom; he may simply go about his lecture and trust the Classroom to assist him at the appropriate moments.