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DARPA Developing Video Parser
coondoggie writes with an article in Networkworld about a disconcerting DARPA project. From the article: "If a picture is worth a thousand words, the scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency would like to make that about a billion with a new software intelligent program. DARPA this month said it will detail a new system it would like to see built known as the Visual Media Reasoning (PDF) program. The main idea is to develop an advanced software program that can 'turn 'dumb' unstructured, ad hoc photos and video into true visual intelligence.'"
Why not design a connectomics informed system that mimics the neural retina and visual system? Something that takes the results of research like this and uses true biologically informed computing to do what neural systems are good at and silicon based systems are not so good at? After all, what they are looking at is a system that works like a retina works (more like a video camera and not a still camera), so why not go to the biology which is really good at comparing like streams of information and making like or not like decisions.
More traditional background on retinal design and research can be found here.
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Turn dumb, unstructured, ad hoc photos into video intelligence.
Cool, if it works, it could compress YouTube into about 60 seconds.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
recognize Mohammed, when it sees him.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Contrast: ""VMR will be an enhanced capability to generate the intelligence required for successful counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations" the agency said."
With: http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all.
That said, it seems like a cool project technically, with multiple uses in civilian applications.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The Intersect.
Finally a topic where the goatse link is on topic.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
"If a picture is worth a thousand words, the scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency would like to make that about a billion with a new software intelligent program."
I hope the software intelligent program better language parses.
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
for one dollar i'll let you put your dick in my mud bucket
Sounds like another academic project, hopefully not one destined to be stuck in the labs forever. Such is the nature and difficulty of computer vision research.
...might finally catch a break.
Seems like a very ambitious project. The implications would be vast for intelligence if done correctly. I'm imagining a program parsing through terabytes of satellite data....
Whatever advances come out of the project might also be applied to doing broad semantic studies of how people use video sharing platforms like YouTube. That would be good for better HCI and, of course, getting more relevant content. Exciting and scary stuff.
Maybe now I will get an Intersect in MY head!
"When half of your head is metal, having a few screws loose takes on a greater meaning". - Jack
The NSA already has an A.I. that can do this. Why is the taxpayer paying twice?
The amount of financial fraud is mind blowing.
And in other news, the NSA has discovered A.I.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Couldn't the members of the NSA do something that Sun-Tzu wouldn't yawn at?
Couldn't the members of the NSA evaluate a working version of the Sorting Hat used commonly at Hogwarts? I know it sounds goofy, but why not take this concept to the engineers in the BACK OF THE ROOM, the ones that are muttering, "What would it take to make a Sorting Hat?"