The basic research questions of this paper are concerned with emergent surveillance-related technologies and practices of intelligent buildings at work and at home: How do these technologies and practices change the flows of information? What are the surveillance potentials? What are the ethical consequences?

The movement from computers as distinct objects (e.g. desktops, laptops and PDA’s) to the integration of computers in the environment of human existence is known as ubiquitous or pervasive computing. The intelligent building, sometimes known as “domotics” (a neologism formed by the Latin domus and from derivation of the Czech robot into robotics ), can thus be defined as the use of technology and automation to buildings and architectonic spaces. Whether the implementation of a domotics system is done independently from the other systems in an intelligent building or the whole concept of use of information technology is coordinated in a central computer with specific software, the need to store data in a database for later query is unavoidable. The spatial character of any building and living environment coupled with the need for coordination with the everyday routines of its inhabitants make the database work like an image of the activities within the building. Examples of this kind of “everyware” (Greenfield 2004) at home include the intelligent refrigerator that automatically generates a shopping list based on its current content (or lack of content) and the preferences of the inhabitants; the intelligent vacuum cleaner that automatically cleans the house at convenient hours of the day; the intelligent heating and lighting system that automatically keeps the room temperature comfortable based on the inhabitants use patterns of the different parts of the house and which turns the light on and off as people are present in certain rooms. Similar examples apply to working environments where intelligent technologies learn and adapt to the patterns of the workers.

These examples have an air of science fiction to them, and developers of technology for intelligent buildings can undoubtedly find inspiration in popular culture. Since the early twentieth century, comic books have enthusiastically explored the possibilities of intelligent technology at home and at work. Furthermore, the very same imaginative ideas have been the subject of satire within popular culture, e.g. Jacques Tati’s Academy Award-winning movie Mon Oncle (1958) that portrays the automated house as impersonal and, to some extent, unintentionally comical. However, the intelligent building is not only science fiction, since a number of adaptive technologies already today have been embedded in homes and workplaces, just as many others are apparently in development. The rationale behind the intelligent building is a vision of a more “natural” interaction with computers. In this way computers become less visible, if not invisible, as they become part of the surroundings rather than objects that need direct “instructions” through an interface. Thus, the intelligent building – home or workplace – is conceived as a caring environment where computers adapt to human existence rather than the other way around. However, this sympathetic idea raises important ethical questions. In order for the intelligent building to be an adaptive, caring environment, it needs to generate quite a lot of information about the behavior and lifestyle of the inhabitants. Basically, the perfect intelligent building needs to spy on everything that goes on within the walls of the home and the workplace. The generated information, which separately may seem “harmless”, will flow together and form a “data double” of the inhabitants and, as the intelligent building is connected to the outside world via the Internet, the invisible computation has the potential to make home and work life visible to the world.

The versatile character of surveillance – control, care and even entertainment (Albrechtslund & Dubbeld 2006) – is well-known within surveillance studies (Lyon 2001, 2003a, 2003b & 2003c) and this conception thus encompasses both negative aspects, such as the possible violation of civil rights, as well as the positive, enabling and entertaining features. Similarly, surveillance studies has a history of studying architecture (from the Panopticon to, now, the intelligent building) that distributes power, sorts individuals and changes the framework for ethical action. In this paper, I will lean on this tradition and study the intelligent building as a computationally altered architecture that fundamentally changes the basis of life and ethical action at home and at work. The surveillance potentials of the intelligent building seem to undermine the boundaries between public and private, between personal and social borders, and in a broader context they seem to transcend the traditional division of life into work, consumption and privacy. My ambition is to study this alteration and to describe its philosophical and ethical aspects. I am especially interested in how we can theorize about this kind of surveillance from an ethical perspective, and through case studies I will discuss and address the challenges on the way towards an ethics for new surveillance in living and working environments.

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