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Video Surveillance System That Reasons Like a Human
An anonymous reader writes "BRS Labs has created a technology it calls Behavioral Analytics which uses cognitive reasoning, much like the human brain, to process visual data and to identify criminal and terroristic activities. Built on a framework of cognitive learning engines and computer vision, AISight, provides an automated and scalable surveillance solution that analyzes behavioral patterns, activities and scene content without the need for human training, setup, or programming."
Nothing can go wrong!
Source or it doesn't work.
A little more info from the BRS Labs website:
...
but still send an alarm when a
burgler steals your stuff!
"The system takes the input from existing video security cameras (no need to change equipment); recognizes and identifies the objects in each frame and passes that data to its Machine Learning Engine. There, the system 'learns' what activity is normal for each unique area viewed by each camera. It then stores these LEARNED memories, much the same way the human brain does, and refers back to them with any and all future activities observed by the camera. If any behavior falls outside of the norm, alerts are generated."
Sounds impressive, but will the algorithms be sophisticated enough to watch grass grow and realize that it's normal behavior for the garbage truck to come by weekly
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
It's a press release pretending to be journalism.
If it doesn't need training, how does it define "terroristic activity"? Is it the "I'll know it when I see it" definition?
The article seems to indicate it works like a Bayesian filter on the video - pointing out things that aren't typical for the camera.
Much like any automated system that is supposed to filter out false positives, it is probably pretty easy to train either the operators or the system itself to throttle back the sensitivity to a point where it ignores everything.
...that somewhere else in the world, there is a young, badass mother fighting off robots from the future that were designed to look like my Governor in a heroic attempt to destroy this new technology along with her scrappy, but as-of-yet slightly immature son....
At least, I think that's where we are in the time-line right?
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
The "machine learning engine" is a "datacenter" (warehouse) full of cheap African laborers who are all watching the cameras.
(this is a joke, it just isn't funny, and it is meant to illustrate a point. See the next line):
God/nature/FSM/evolution/al gore/$deity has done a pretty damn good job at building our brains, why are we trying to reinvent that wheel in a computer?
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
...does it run racial profiling?
THL phish sticks
So I guess this means that the camera is going to Harass people taking Photos now?
Even better. It will call some rentacops and tell them that there's "suspected terroristic activity" taking place, and suddenly a tourist will get a taser up some orifice because "the computer" already labeled him a terrorist and therefore Osama's second in command.
What a great way to absolve any personal responsibility. Detained wrongfully? Not our fault, the machine said you were moving like a terrorist.
Human judgment isn't accurate enough to distinguish between an actual terrorist and someone who may look like one. Why is there anyone expecting good results from a machine emulating this judgment that isn't reliable in the first place?
Much like detecting terrorists by facial recognition, this is vaporware until they publish some numbers.
I once had someone misplace a sales call to me, being proud his facial recognition system was 70% accurate. He had no idea how much his system is a pain in the ass when its wrong, and for the airport security business he was trying to get, 90% accuracy is considered terrible.
Ocean's Thirteen that a system like that.
Brad Pitt that an actor in that.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Really I am sick and tired of the surveillance realm. If anybody really wants to do something nefarious they will make sure the cameras don't work. Simply pull them down, spray them with paint or whatever. The authorities will not come running. After the fact usage is good, but really it doesn't stop any crime, even the random ones.We are the ones funding this and do not even have a say in it.
So, it instinctively directs the cameras towards the hot women all the time, distracted from important things it should look at?
Interestingly in Europe after a series of dreadful incidents on live video, this is finally being debated on the eve of general elections: http://www.piratenpartei.de/node/920/29268#comment-29268 - as at the other end of the line, in a situation room (that may be on the next floor or station, and yet too) far away, officers will have to watch events unfold and wish in vain to finally be out there with a gun again (or have sufficient forces to dispatch), e.g. to stop that attacker they can only videotape and helplessly watch wreak havoc on screen.
to comply!
No one talkd about ED-209 yet?
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
you give us another billion dollars to finish it.
Yeah, right.
A 1% error rate will produce a hundred times as many false positives - all innocent people accused of a crime - as real positives. And a 20% error rate is far, far more likely.
Scams like this are the reason why you have to show up at airports three hours early now.
Is it smart enough to knwo that "terroristic" isn't a real word, at least?
To do what AISight does one needs:
Moving objects must be dynamically tracked and their behavior somehow segmented into steps. This is arbitrary in that there can be a theoretically infinite variety of such segments for any given macro behavior. E.g., I can say "Mary handed the book to Tom." or I can say "Mary grasped the book, Mary extended her arm in the direction of Tom, Tom extended his hand in the direction of Mary and grasped the book, Mary un-grasped the book, Tom retracted his arm (with the book)." Both describe the same action, but the second has a finer segmentation of behavior.
All the pieces are available in freeware. It's essentially a classic AI expert system. Since they're getting millions for known technology (and software), I expect to see a freeware version of this available soon!8-))