Abstract

It is widely recognized that television could provide a digital home information appliance.  However, such an appliance has not emerged as successful.  Perhaps there is only a deficiency in properly conceptualizing the appliance.  In keeping with this theme, this paper presents a theory of why people value information.  

Digest

This morning the TV said a semi-truck jackknifed on the expressway into work. That night the TV said the Italian place down the street was having a special on subs - half price.

 The Television as Robot Servant

Robert Thibadeau, Ph.D.
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213

If television sets get smart, isn't this the best way?  Television attracts us because it services our need for entertainment, sports, and news.  But the question takes on new meaning when we ask if digital interactive (smart) TV can service our need for other kinds of information.   We think the right place to start is to answer the question "why is information valued?"
News conveys information that is valued because it is timely.  Information also has value because it is pertinent to the locale and to personal needs.  Television is a great servant because it pleasantly conveys some pertinent information. But suppose we equip the television with knowledge of "who, what, and where it is,"  and then let it "watch" its own environment and "converse" with the humans out there.  The television's environment would be the broadcast (digital) feed.  The television set then becomes the robot servant: like a Star Wars C3PO without arms or legs.

The smart TV is different from the "computer."  The original TV information tool was videotex.  This constantly re-broadcast some number of "pages" or screens.   With enough effort, it is possible to find a screen one is looking for.  Tragically, videotex classically contains little, if any, information of value.  Broadcasting the same thing to everybody, in little screens, means that nobody is getting much of any relevance to them.  Regular video news is harder hitting, and you don't have to search for the information.  It is presented to you.  
The essence of the servant is that it assists without asking.  Things are accomplished without thinking to accomplish them because the servant does the thinking.  If you have to think, to make a decision, then what is the servant really for?  The solution is to architect a smart TV system so that decision making, thinking, is minimized while the value of the information is maximized.  We define the simplest form of utility function as:
U = I / T	(1)
The Utility (or value) is the Information value divided by the amount of Thinking (number of decisions).  I and T can be expressed in exactly the same units of information value (bits or, alternatively, "yes-no" decisions). 
This function can logically be rewritten purely in a time sense.  Information uncertainty was reduced at some prior time that reduces the uncertainty now and therefore requires fewer decisions now.  Put simply, we have:
Utn = It< n/ Ttn	(2)
Utility depends strictly on what decisions are made for you prior to the time, tn, that you make a decision.   For convenience, returning to the first form of this equation, we can give Utility a unit value in bits of information value by simply making (1) exponential.  It would be interesting to know k in:
U = Ik / T	(3)
This, more general, utility is preferred if we consider utility, U, to carry a reduction of uncertainty.  Many people have noted that the value of the cellular telephone, TV news, and pagers is the reduction in uncertainty.  We believe most entertainment value is profitably viewed as reduction of uncertainty (creating and resolving it).  Certainly, this is true of narrative (storytelling) and music structure.
In this model, people monitor how valuable information is to them -- always.  There is always at least one decision (or a fraction of one) that pertains to the utility of the current information (since a divide by zero is not allowed.)  Utility can zoom to near infinity.  It is possible to catch you exactly right.
The value of television is in a high-value utility:  note the simplicity of the decision in channel changing and then simply watching. So, "channel surfing" means the man-machine system is creating fractional denominators (thinking decisions) that, by the formula, means high utility value even with relatively poor information. 
If decisions come from others, this further modifies the basic equation:
U = (Iself + Iother) / T	(4)
The efficiency of the system is enhanced if the Iother is itself the result of a broadcast multiplication factor, B, the bigger the better:
U = (Iself + B I'other) / T	(5)
In other words, one I'other decision is multiplied by the number of people it effects.  The larger the number, the more efficient the system is in reducing the "overall decision loading" and thus the service cost of smart TV.
There is a derivative multiplier in the automaton.  This is the robot actively making a decision not explicitly anticipated by the creator of the robot.  Call this an automaton factor, A.  The automaton factor is also a multiplier.  Thus,
U = A (Iself + B I'other) / T	(6)
Our analysis says that utility requires we (a) minimize the current decision requirement, (b) utilize the decision requirements of others that are broadcast, (c) utilize past decisions, and (d) utilize automatons that can leverage decisions.  
Automatons are best that accomplish the narrowest function: simple services providing highly relevant information.  In the traffic-to-work service, you indicate your location  and the office location.  This is a one time, past, Iself cost.  The automaton multiplier, A, is enormous since the automaton does the customization, the Iother value is high because somebody wrote a fairly complicated computer program, and the "think cost," T, is essentially fractional (look for a message light on the TV). 
A longer version of this paper with bibliography is available as Technical Report CMU-RI-TR-93-22 Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.