Thread · HN Continuity

Now this is how[0] we get some of the most magical Star Trek technology that eludes us to this day, such as automatic doors. Because if you notice, they work much, much better than real-life ones, because they seem to be doing something like this:

  if(within 10 meters of door then) {
    if(Jev(
       [A] Intends to go through, expects doors to open
       [B] Approaches with no intent to pass
       [C] Passing by, loiters, or otherwise
       [D] Other
    ) == most definitely A) {
      &#x2F;&#x2F; open doors, +&#x2F;- identity&#x2F;security&#x2F;interlocks check
    } else {
      &#x2F;&#x2F; ignore
    }
  }

Keywords: ambient awareness, understanding of intent.

Most interactive tech on Star Trek is like this - from phasers to consoles to communicators to voice interactions with the ship's computer. The computer seems to be aware of the user and surrounding, and actively infers intent from context, to DWIM ("do what I mean") and when they mean it, instead of doing dumb things[1] on simple triggers.

[0] - The direction, not final implementation - surely we can work out how to do it more efficiently than wrapping around final stage of LLM. But the point is, multimodal.

[1] - Obviously it's a fictional show, but in this, both Watsonian and Doylist explanations align near-perfectly: this is/portrays advanced technology, that Just Works and doesn't do stupid shit. Same intent recognition algorithm is there - fictionally in the computer, in reality in the minds of on-set technicians.