CHIL - Computers in the Human Interaction Loop

CHIL ("Computers in the Human Interaction Loop") is an Integrated Project under the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme. The CHIL consortium is jointly coordinated by Universität Karlsruhe (TH) and the Fraunhofer Institute IITB. CHIL was launched on January 1st, 2004. The objective of this project is to explore and create environments in which computers serve humans who focus on interacting with other humans as opposed to having to attend to and being preoccupied by the machines themselves. Instead of computers operating in an isolated manner, and humans [thrust] in the loop [of computers]. CHIL puts Computers in the Human Interaction Loop (CHIL). Fifteen partners from nine countries in Europe and the US collaborate in the CHIL Consortium to design Technologies and Computer Services that model humans and the state of their activities and intentions. A complete perceptual context enables a family of CHIL computing services that provide helpful assistance implicitly, requiring a minimum of human attention or interruptions. 1. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The objective of the CHIL project is to create environments in which computers serve humans who focus on interacting with other humans as opposed to having to attend to and being preoccupied with the machines themselves. Instead of computers operating in an isolated manner, and Humans [thrust] in the loop [of computers], we will put Computers in the Human Interaction Loop (CHIL). We design Computer Services that model humans and the state of their activities and intentions. Based on the understanding of the human perceptual context, CHIL computers are enabled to provide helpful assistance implicitly, requiring a minimum of human attention or interruptions (see also the CHIL – Scenarios section). To achieve this overall vision, a broad set of key scientific issues is proposed: Multimodal Perceptual User Interfaces that observe, recognize, fuse, and interpret all available cues and clues to explain human-human activities and intentions. Fundamental new algorithms are needed to achieve these capabilities (see the CHIL – Technologies section). A suite of Services that instantiate CHIL Computing based on perceptual context awareness and understanding of human activity. These services must balance implicit and explicit computer interaction, and must deliver information in an appropriate manner. Services include better ways of connecting people (without phone-tag), supporting human memory, & providing meeting support (see CHIL – Services) and more. A supportive infrastructure that supports CHIL Services including Automomic Computing, selfhealing and self-maintaining software, flexible architecture, and a networked infrastructure integrating numerous devices intermittently and dynamically. The resulting shift from HumanComputer Interaction only (requiring full human attention) to increased reliance on human-human interaction is expected to lead to human productivity gains and reduced computer frustration (see CHIL – Software Architecture).