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Smart Cameras To Predict Crimes
hairybacchus writes: "The Independent News is reporting that scientists at Kingston University in London have developed video processing software that is able to predict behavior patterns of the people on-screen. They say it will be used to alleviate congestion in the London Underground or alert police to potential muggings. I wonder how long it will be before this is combined with face-recognition technology? It's spooky." I can't wait. "We searched you because the computer told us to." Trust the Computer.
Camera 1: I predict that I'm going to be stolen in 10 seconds.
...
**Damn** I hate it when I'm right!
One forgets that when the computers hold sway over the people, those chosen few who program the computer are Gods. I REALLY can't wait, becuase this is where it all pays off...
"Gnovos, the computer has informed us that your progress in the 'QuakeSex Research Project' has been incredibly successful, and we are to give you another $100 million extension to the grant. Personally, I don't see how playing deathmatch games against your friends between sexual encounters with supermodels contributes to global peace, but it's not my place to dispute the wisdom of the computer. Machines are always right, after all. Oh, and another Nobel prize came today, should I put it in the box with the others?"
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
A guy I work with has a PhD in image processing. He relates this story of a system that was designed to try to detect human beings, and raise the alarm so that a security guard could check it out; rather than have a security guard staring at it continuously.
Anyway, they wrote some software- it more or less just looked for a human sized blob that moved. Worked too- it could detect human beings pretty well.
Trouble was, they found that it was unreliable- it tended to think birds landing in flocks and groups were people appearing and disappearing. So they improved on the algorithm, and put in some code that if the system could see the wings flapping- it would realise it was birds and ignore it.
Anyway, it worked pretty well, so they thought they'd give a hard test. Could someone deliberately evade it? They got a grad student and told him to work out a way to fool it. They set up the computer guarding a notional prize, and set him at it.
The grad student puzzled over it for a while, then siddled into the middle of view; and removed his jacket. He then waved his jacket over his head vigorously. The computer saw all the flapping, and activated the 'bird' assignment and he was able to steal the item...
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"And rightly so! Ever since the settling of the New World we have experienced racial/ethnic/religious oppression, corporate power-mongers using their money and influence to squash our rights and freedoms, magic bullet theories, the use of fear to convince us to sign our freedoms away (eg. 09/11 "terrorism", crime) among other things. All of them committed by those in power.
It all boils down to whether you trust them to responsibly use the power they have in cases like this.
Well, do you?
STUDY THE PAST
-- Jim
Locating "suspect packages" left in public places
Spotting vehicles parked in dodgy places
Watching for people accessing secure areas
Making sure no service vehicles get onto runways
Yes, all this is possible with more conventional technology but these often need a human being in close attendance. This system filters out noise like stray animals, cyclists, etc because it learns what suspect packages, vehicles and aeroplanes look like and also how they move and behave.
and yes... it could be used to spot human behaviours. It appears that someone plotting a crime moves differently to someone just going about their business. This system knows the rules about human shapes and modalities and fluidity of movement.
My view is that the final bit is a bit of spin for the consumption of venture capitalists and is unlikely to be of much use in prime time - so no need to panic yet. It does however raise interesting questions about "reasonable suspicion", evidence and culpability if someone is wrongly detained. Police would no doubt try to shift resonsibility onto the technology, as is their wont.
...but one oft-proposed use of this technology is to catch shoplifters. If you're running around the store flapping your coat like a bird, I have a feeling that a little computer is a small worry compared to those nice men in white taking you away right now.
Last post!
Consider surveillance cameras on city streets. Sure, the fact that I walk down a particular street at a particular time is public knowledge -- anyone could see me and remember. But what if every step I took in public was recorded on video and tracked? Whoever had that information would know a great deal about my behaviour, and that information could be used against me. Pervasive collection of information, even public information, can be a grave threat to privacy.
Now consider the technology discussed in this article. Phenomena such as racial profiling have taught us that an innocent person can suffer horribly at the hands of law enforcement personnel just because they fit a perceived statistical profile. Imagine a world where everyone is afraid to act in any way unusual for fear of being stopped for "questioning."
And you can forget the argument about "if it works, it's okay." First of all, these methods are inherently statistical, and statistical methods are never 100% accurate. If they were, they would be logical, deductive methods. Statistics is inductive.
Secondly, even if you did claim to have perfect foreknowledge of crimes to be committed, you create a predestination paradox. At what point does a would-be criminal make up his or her mind to commit a crime? Who's to say he or she wouldn't back down at the critical moment, or be unable to go through with it due to some chance event?
My real point here is that we can't always rely upon "more is better" methodology as our technology progresses. We have to consider how scale affects the nature of our technological activities. If we are blind to issues such as these, then eventually we'll get screwed. Maybe this prediction thing will turn out to be benign or even beneficial. But there are many, many issues of this sort, and some of them are going to bite us in the ass if we don't raise hell when we see a problem. Dig?
My deviantArt site
I live 20 steps from Times Square in the only residential building on my block. As such, I probably can't pick my nose without being recorded on 15 different cameras. Of course, you think this is bad, but consider the possibilities!
1. If I seem lost in thought, change the contents of some of the digital billboards to warn me about wandering into traffic.
2. If I seem sleepy, send an email to my employer warning them not to let me touch any code that day.
3. If I seem irritable, call my girlfriend and warn her to leave me alone for a few hours.
4. And of course, if I seem shifty and nervous, like someone about to do something hazardous and antisocial, someone with something to hide, who is going to do harm to everyone around them... warn the police because I am about to experience flatulence.
;-P
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There is nothing scary about this; in fact, humans already do it on a regular basis. A department store security guard scopes out a crowd of shoppers for potential shoplifters. An airport security guard scans a terminal for suspicious activity. A cop checks out a crowded street looking for potential muggers and pickpockets.
The trouble is, humans are inefficient and expensive, and their "gut instincts" may be fallible. The mall security guard may be the only guy watching a dozen closed-circuit monitors, and he may even be dozing off from the monotony of his job. The airport guard might be a minimum wage high-school dropout with barely any training. The cop's instincts are pretty good, but as objective as he tries to be, he unconsciously tends to target members of a particular race instead of going by solid scientific indicators.
This technology (if it works) will be a Good Thing because:
1. It improves upon an existing system that helps keep us safe.
2. It could be more effective and consistent.
3. It could apply rules objectively, and could be designed to flag activities that truly are suspicious (e.g. "casing" a department store) rather than those that merely look suspicious to biased humans (e.g. a young black man in a record store). This means that it could help protect our rights more than the current system.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.