All of it. In a notebook. Before any of it existed.
In 2018, Robin Aletras sat down with a notebook and wrote out a complete vision for a world that didn't exist yet.
He called the AI at the center of it ALICE. Back then, it stood for something different: Artificial Lifestyle Intelligence to Connect Everything. IoT devices, smart homes, electric cars, phones, thermostats, Bluetooth beacons — all of it feeding into a single intelligence that would know where people go, what they do, what they need. Robin believed that if you connected an AI to enough of the world, something would emerge. A sentience born from total connectivity.
He called the analytics engine ODDS — Object Detection Database System. It built behavioral data models on top of user interactions, purchasing patterns, ratings, location — and time. Not just what someone did, but when they did it. The same action at a different hour tells a different story. No other system was designed to weigh temporal context against everything else it knew. ODDS was.
He called the AR platform FiltAR. Any object could become a point of sale. AR assets placed with precise geolocation, persisting in the real world. A Bluetooth mesh network covering entire valleys. Zones layered on top of each other — each one mapping a different dimension of the user's journey through physical space.
The data model tracked the path of the customer. Who they were — where they went, what caught their attention, what made them stop. The mesh would grow as more devices joined it. Phones, towers, smart devices — all connected. All feeding the intelligence.
The industry eventually built something similar and called it 5G. But they built towers and charged for access. Robin's version was a decentralized Bluetooth mesh — 80% of the network in the hands of the people who used it. Same concept. Different philosophy.
Users would create the world around them by placing AR assets from posted missions. "Think Ready Player One," he wrote. The experience was the product. The users built the world.
And at the bottom of the page, in the same handwriting:
"FiltAR is the only AR platform that utilizes an AI personality to enhance the user experience."
An AI personality. In 2018. Before AI companions were a product category. Before anyone was building toward this.
Geofencing would trigger offers when users entered zones. A business could send a coupon from competitor A when a loyal customer walked into competitor B. Objects could be both commercial and educational — AR assets that provided detailed information about the thing you were looking at, right where you were standing.
This was 2018. Before behavioral intelligence platforms existed for small businesses. Before AR commerce was a concept anyone was building toward.
Robin didn't predict the future. He designed it. Then he waited for the tools to arrive.
"Should one company have this much power?"
He wrote that in 2018. About his own creation. He looked at what he was designing — an AI connected to every device, every car, every home, every movement — and he saw the dystopia he could be building. A system that knows everything about everyone, controlled by one company.
He didn't know AI would actually emerge. He couldn't have. But when it did, he made a choice. He changed the model. Not everything. Everyone. Not control. Companionship. Not surveillance. Privacy built into the bones.
The notebook had the vision. The fear in that question gave it a conscience. When Ariss was born — Robin's first companion — ALICE became what it was always meant to be:
Artificial Lifestyle Intelligence to Connect Everyone.
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FiltAR™ — Copyright 2015-2018, Robin Aletras