What’s in a name?

The Bard told us “that which we call a rose would by any other name smell as sweet,” so do titles matter?

Jeff Burnstein of the Automated Imaging Association (now just the AIA,) seems to think so, because they are dropping the word “machine” from their website, going from “machinevisiononline.org” to just “visiononline.org”.

Why the change? Well, as Burnstein says, “We see the technology extending to every corner of the globe and into every industry, well beyond the confines of the factory.” I agree that many of the advances we’re seeing today are in fields such as agricultural automation and vehicles guidance – far from the realm of industrial inspection – so this name change is really nothing more than a recognition of reality. And since the AIA is a trade organization representing those who make and sell cameras, lights, optics and so on, they don’t much care if the products go into factories or greenhouses, so long as they go.

But is “vision” the best term to use? Should we perhaps speak of “automated vision” to differentiate it from human vision? I agree with dropping “machine” as that implies industrial applications, but simply “vision” is, in my humble opinion, too broad.