of accumulating each and every piece of information, no matter how trivial or elaborate, related to the whole life of a single human being becomes feasible? Would we then be able to re-create a complete and accurate representation of that person—not only her appearance, actions, interests, and habits but also her personality and way of thinking?

And what if, instead of feeding this model into software applications and services, we presented it to its rightful human owner? In this case, the biggest obstacle that we would probably stumble upon would be that of data rendering, or how to present such massive and diverse, and potentially chaotic, data in a structured, meaningful, and comprehensible way.

For the sake of our hypothesis, let’s suppose that we eventually manage to create an appropriate rendering machine, which we entitle the Ambient Mirror—the contents of which are accurate, noncontroversial, and human-readable.

Then, the first thing that one would probably ask is, “Will the person in question be able to recognize their actual self in this digital reflection?” You see, humans tend not to keep a “high resolution” account of who we are, what we think, or what we do. Instead, we draw a rough sketch of ourselves based on a small, and sometimes fictitious, portion of the available information. Our brain constantly filters millions of details, retaining only a few important facts or events, often creating idealized, mitigated, or aggravated versions of them. Furthermore, over time, much of this retained data is forgotten, corrupted, pushed back, or merged.

If we somehow manage to get a satisfying answer to the aforementioned question, then the next step would be to identify possible “applications” of such a tool and assess their potential usefulness, as well as their impact both to the individual and the to the society as a whole.

Personal Use of the Ambient Mirror On an abstract level, the Ambient Mirror can be described as a tool for recording past personal experiences. Over the course of a few thousand years, humans devised and used several other tools for the same cause. Indisputably, the first one was memory. Then came the spoken language, writing, as well as art, mainly in the form of painting and sculpture. In the modern age, the task is further facilitated through a multitude of electronic devices such as microphones, photographic/video cameras, and computers. Of course, all these “traditional” means will also be basic constituents of the Ambient Mirror, but in a novel, pervasive (and probably miniaturized) manifestation, as well as integrated with additional monitoring technologies and reasoning components that will extend their grasp and complement their abilities. Table 1 illustrates an attempt to sum up the foreseen differences between past practices and the Ambient Mirror.

The data-collection process is user initiated and user driven.*

The target person is always aware* of the personal data-recording process and means and also knows what kind of data is being recorded.

The means used for acquiring the data have a physical, monolithic manifestation.

The recorded data comprises only disjointed fragments of the person’s bodily and mental activities.

Data are recorded “as such”, i.e., exactly in the form in which they are produced. Any correlation or interpretation is the result of post-processing by their retriever.

The retriever views and/or listens to the data from a third-person perspective (i.e., like watching someone else).

The data-collection process is self-triggered, taking place everywhere, anytime.

Many different types of data about the target person are constantly being recorded without her knowledge or consent.

The means may be distributed and embedded in the building blocks of the environment, or may even be immaterial (a software sensor).

Theoretically, the recorded data comprises each and every detail of the person’s bodily and mental activities.

Correlation and interpretation of various data is done on the fly, at the same time that it’s being produced. Such “meta-data” becomes part of the recorded information and becomes timely available to the retriever.

The retriever can experience the data from both an “exocentric” (i.e., third person) and an “egocentric” (i.e., first person) perspective.

* Except in cases of wire tapping or surveillance.