Next Generation Smart Built Environments: The Fusion of Empathy, Privacy and Ethics

Smart Built Environments (SBEs) and similar cyber-physical environments utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) have been a growing research area in recent years. Contemporary research primarily addresses technology aspects, while human aspects, such as empathy, privacy and ethics (EPE for short), in relation to SBEs have not yet received adequate attention. In addition to challenges with respect to technology, there are apparent tensions and conflicting requirements involving EPE. On the other hand, opportunities exist for these aspects to support one another. For example, data collected and analyzed for empathic response may be used to alert the privacy-preserving subsystem. An ethical response may turn out to be the most empathic. The main objective of this paper is to present our vision for next generation SBEs and to explore pertinent EPE factors. We propose a unified framework that incorporates a game theoretic model to address EPE interplay in SBEs. Integral to our framework, we also introduce the use of a blockchain infrastructure for the critical need to support data integrity in such data-intensive environments. We illustrate our work in progress using an example. We then present major research challenges for the realization of next generation SBEs with fused EPE.