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Smart Cameras Detect Crime, Erode Privacy
MattSparkes writes "Smart surveillance systems could identify crimes as they take place, if a computer vision system developed at the University of Texas goes into production. The system is capable of classifying behaviour as friendly or violent. In the past there have been attempts to spot unusual behaviour, but this required subsequent user classification. These new systems may keep us more secure, but is it worth sacrificing our privacy for? And will we see false positives, where police cars screech to a halt beside hugging couples?"
A computer vision system developed in the University of Texas in Austin, US, can already tell the difference between friendly behaviour, such as shaking hands, and aggressive actions like punching or pushing.
Just because someone pushes or punches someone else, doesn't mean it isn't friendly. Would be flicking off a friend be considered an aggressive act?
Let's leave this sort of shit to human judgment instead of relying on cameras all the time. We really don't need to be going down this road.
Many people already automatically trust the machine since "it's the machine." To them, it can only fail when it's broken, not be broken by design unless it's a home electronic device. Kiss your liberties goodbye. This will make the red light cameras look like nothing.
And will we see false positives, where police cars screech to a halt beside hugging couples?
This is easily solvable by splitting behavior into 3 different types: Normal, dangerous, and HOT!
This could revolutionize the webcam industry.
Do people really have an expecation of privacy while in a public area? Should I expect to be able to walk down the street with my dick hanging out of my pants screaming "FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH!" at the top of my lungs and not expect any repercussions?
Without even needing to RTFA, I think we can say with high confidence that "detecting crime" is an AI-complete problem. That is, any system capable of detecting crime must also have the full intelligence of a person in order to make the complex ethical/legal judgments involved. This implies as well that the system will likely have all the accompanying quirks of personhood, including (but not limited to) a favorite baseball team and a strong desire to be on American Idol.
Thus, we can conclude that a) the supposed system is 95% bunk, and b) anyone who eventually invents such a system for real will win the Nobel Prize and be immortalized in human history.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
Doh. Spellcheckers don't notice when you type 'than' instead of 'then' do they. Hopefully 3.0 will have a grammar checker for you.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
"He's written a good thing in that manuscript," Verhovensky went on. "He suggests a system of spying. Every member of the society spies on the others, and it's his duty to inform against them. Every one belongs to all and all to every one. All are slaves and equal in their slavery. In extreme cases he advocates slander and murder, but the great thing about it is equality. To begin with, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of education and science is only possible for great intellects, and they are not wanted. The great intellects have always seized the power and been despots. Great intellects cannot help being despots and they've always done more harm than good. They will be banished or put to death. Cicero will have his tongue cut out, Copernicus will have his eyes put out, Shakespeare will be stoned--that's Shigalovism. Slaves are bound to be equal. There has never been either freedom or equality without despotism, but in the herd there is bound to be equality, and that's Shigalovism! Ha ha ha! Do you think it strange?
y /d72p/chapter13.html
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/d/dostoyevsk
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
And what, pray tell, do you think the policeman's brain is executing when he is deciding whether or not to accost you?
At least with a robotic police force, the algorithms can be standardized, QA'd, reviewed, perhaps even open-sourced.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
How can it be a free society when there is ubiquitous surveillance and police presence? How can people be free when they are afraid that any abberation in behavior will bring police action upon them?
You don't have arrest and prosecute to squash free speech and free assembly. You just have to have persistent police investigations and police "harassment".
Why would you even want to live in a society like that?
It is not reasonable to expect that your actions in public will be kept private from other private citizens in a public area, as that would be taking away the rights of other citizens in order to provide you with privacy. The government, however, is not a private citizen and has no rights. It exists only to serve the people. In order to spend my tax dollars and intrude on the privacy of the people, they need to show a reasonable cause. Blanket surveillance under the assumption that you might be about to commit a criminal act does not meet those criteria.
(From the article submitter)
These new systems may keep us more secure, but is it worth sacrificing our privacy for?
If government imposes these cameras on me, I will NOT refer to it as a "sacrifice" on my part, and I will NOT be told that somehow I asked for it. I NEVER gave my consent for government to spy on me. But wait, you say, if I remain on the land I was born on, then I have already volunteered my consent to any law the collective wishes to impose on me, past, present, and future!
Wrong. The "social contract" theory claims that citizens volunteer themselves to be subject to coercion by "not leaving". This is absurd. A person cannot volunteer to be subject to coercion, any more than you can force a person to volunteer. The two modes of human interaction (voluntary association and coercion) are opposite and mutually exclusive -- that is, in fact, what gives them meaning.
Really, I'm getting sick of hearing about how decisions made by the power elite are somehow decisions that "we" put on ourselves. A person who makes a voluntary choice doesn't NEED to be coerced.
And what, pray tell, do you think the policeman's brain is executing when he is deciding whether or not to accost you?
1) A mugging or a hugging can be over in seconds. Can the camera tell which was which before it phones the police?
2) There'll be more cameras than patrolling cop cars. A patrolling cop car can ignore or react to an incident depending on how it unfolds. A camera that tells a cop to respond to a particular location means the cop HAS to respond.
Not the worst idea ever, but it might be the biggest waste of time for our boys in blue.