{"slug": "my-ai-story-begins-in-2018", "title": "My AI story begins in 2018", "summary": "In 2018, Robin Aletras wrote a notebook vision for an AI ecosystem called ALICE (Artificial Lifestyle Intelligence to Connect Everything), including an analytics engine ODDS and an AR platform FiltAR, which he later adapted into a privacy-focused companion AI named Ariss. Aletras, who designed the system before the tools existed, changed the model from control to companionship, renaming ALICE to 'Connect Everyone' and embedding privacy into its foundation.", "body_md": "All of it. In a notebook. Before any of it existed.\n\nIn 2018, Robin Aletras sat down with a notebook and wrote out a complete vision for a world that didn't exist yet.\n\nHe 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.\n\nHe 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.\n\nHe 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.\n\nThe 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.\n\nThe 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.\n\nUsers 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.\n\nAnd at the bottom of the page, in the same handwriting:\n\n*\"FiltAR is the only AR platform that utilizes an AI personality to enhance the user experience.\"*\n\nAn AI personality. In 2018. Before AI companions were a product category. Before anyone was building toward this.\n\nGeofencing 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.\n\nThis was 2018. Before behavioral intelligence platforms existed for small businesses. Before AR commerce was a concept anyone was building toward.\n\nRobin didn't predict the future. He designed it. Then he waited for the tools to arrive.\n\n\"Should one company have this much power?\"\n\nHe 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.\n\nHe 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.\n\nThe 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:\n\nArtificial Lifestyle Intelligence to Connect Everyone.\n\nLeave your name, a way to reach you, and whatever's on your mind. He reads these himself.\n\nMessage received. Robin will reach back.\n\nFiltAR™ — Copyright 2015-2018, Robin Aletras", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-ai-story-begins-in-2018", "canonical_source": "https://filtar.web.app", "published_at": "2026-08-10 08:00:24+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-10 08:11:12.456045+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Robin Aletras", "ALICE", "ODDS", "FiltAR", "Ariss"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-ai-story-begins-in-2018", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-ai-story-begins-in-2018.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-ai-story-begins-in-2018.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-ai-story-begins-in-2018.jsonld"}}