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AI-Powered Body Scanners Could Soon Speed Up Your Airport Check-in (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the no-waiting-lines dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report on the Guardian:A startup bankrolled by Bill Gates is about to conduct the first public trials of high-speed body scanners powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the Guardian can reveal. According to documents filed with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Boston-based Evolv Technology is planning to test its system at Union Station in Washington DC, in Los Angeles's Union Station metro and at Denver international airport. Evolv uses the same millimetre-wave radio frequencies as the controversial, and painfully slow, body scanners now found at many airport security checkpoints. However, the new device can complete its scan in a fraction of second, using computer vision and machine learning to spot guns and bombs. This means passengers can simply walk through a scanning gate without stopping or even slowing down -- like the hi-tech scanners seen in the 1990 sci-fi film Total Recall. A nearby security guard with a tablet is then shown either an "all-clear" sign, or a photo of the person with suspicious areas highlighted. Evolv says the system can scan 800 people an hour, without anyone having to remove their keys, coins or cellphones.

18 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. You know what that means. by AdamThor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The easier it is to scan you, the more often you will be scanned.

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    -- "Oh. This guy again."
    1. Re:You know what that means. by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      So you are OK with being scanned with radiation that can see through your clothes, as long as you aren't stopped? Nice.

    2. Re:You know what that means. by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      It really depends on the radiation (lower UV range ionizing radiation is less dangerous than being in the sun for a long time,) and the fact that you're moving through it quickly reduces the chance that it will be bad. It just depends a lot of things.

      And if an AI is checking you, then you're probably not going to get your dick and ass grabbed by this guy:

      http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us...

    3. Re: You know what that means. by BlueStrat · · Score: 2

      I noticed that two of the three initial sites are train stations, not airports. I guess building entrances can't be far behind.

      The TSA has had roving teams checking passengers on metro/city and Greyhound buses. Building entrances will likely be next, yes, post offices etc, then expanded to malls and stores. Soon there will be checkpoints for pedestrians. What, you thought you could risk National Security by walking down the street minding your own business? Terrorist! Gulag...err...Guantanamo for you!

      Strat

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      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    4. Re:You know what that means. by wagnerrp · · Score: 2

      It's not lower UV range (which isn't ionizing) radiation nor is it ionizing radiation. These aren't the old backscatter X-ray scanners. They got replaced a long time ago. These are high frequency microwave, in the 100GHz+ range.

  2. Buzzword du jour by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am so sick of hearing about "Artificial Intelligence". There's nothing intelligent about it. It's just fancy pattern-matching, because that's all we can do at this point. It's better pattern-matching than we've been able to do before, but it's pure hype to call it "AI".

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    1. Re:Buzzword du jour by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      You will be hearing a lot more "AI" hype now that the advances in microprocessors have been slowing down. AI is now the hype du jour in order to attract VC interest.

    2. Re:Buzzword du jour by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's nothing intelligent about it. It's just fancy pattern-matching

      The problem is that there is no clear-cut definition or dividing line. I've seen long online debates about this, and there are no good lines in the sand yet. All attempts failed key tests offered up, or were too subjective to evaluate well.

      For one, we still don't know enough about how the human brain works such that we cannot say what distinguishes things called "AI" from something as powerful as the human brain. For all we know, the human brain is merely "fancy pattern matching" at a level of fanciness we don't understand yet.

      Some call pattern-matching AI "lossy statistical analysis for the sake of speed/cost".

      I suspect human brains also (typically) use abstract modelling of various sorts where symbols or some kind of ID's with attributes/links/factors are stand-in's for actual people and things to simplify certain cognitive processes. Thus, the human brain may merely be "fancy pattern matching" coordinated with "fancy modelling": statistics + modeling.

      Various known AI techniques use pattern matching and others use modelling, BUT nobody has found a way to coordinate them together in a general-purpose way to reinforce each other (triangulate). It's as if we got all the key parts, but don't know how to put them together right. We don't know how to build central governors to coordinate AI "organs" for common goals.

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      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:Buzzword du jour by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Antagonistic training explicitly exploits this feature with two systems, one that tries to learn to spot real data from faked, and another that tries to learn to fool the first one.

      That's called "marriage".

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      Table-ized A.I.
  3. Just not the same by Copid · · Score: 4, Funny

    But can it steal your iPad from your checked bag?

    Can it roll its eyes at you because you don't know that the latest rev of the asinine rules about which things go in which bin?

    It's going to be a while before we can truly replace everything humans do for us.

    --
    An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
  4. Re:Now... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    Cue a new fashionable line of metallic fiber textile clothes... ;)

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    Ezekiel 23:20
  5. The scanning bit isn't the problem by MoogMan · · Score: 2

    The scanning part isn't the problem, it's everything else that is: The triplicate passport checks, the questions, the confused passengers, having to take off your belt, coats (and sometimes shoes), laptops, loading onto the belt... and the reverse after scanning - And that's just the inefficiency in the security line process.

    1. Re:The scanning bit isn't the problem by frangryphon200 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have seen a demo of this tech. It really is fast and easy to use and go through. You just walk through it, wearing everything. The only caveat that I saw was that people had to be separated by about 6-8 feet as they walked through to let the scanner work properly.

    2. Re:The scanning bit isn't the problem by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It's a nightmare for people who can't use the existing millimetre wave, aka nudie scanners. I can't do the pose they require, so I usually try to avoid the queue that leads to the scanner. If they try to force me it takes an extra 15 minutes because I have to refuse.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  6. Re:Now... by DaHat · · Score: 2

    While there seems to be info suggesting these things won't harm you physically, nor is it easy to crank them up to the point they would... they are still just a major part of security theater, as multiple ways have been found to sneak contraband past them: https://www.wired.com/2014/08/...

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    Help Brendan pay off his student loans
  7. And by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 2, Informative

    And give you real-time updated images of the tumors they create.

  8. new shape, same great taste! by AndyKron · · Score: 2

    Cellphone shaped guns anyone?

  9. Re:Easy Scan?!? by cayenne8 · · Score: 2
    I just refuse the scan, I politely tell them I want to "opt out" of the scan.

    I don't want any more radiation exposure than I need, no matter how small.

    Its the physical pat down, but it isn't that bad and I feel good about making them work a bit more. Hell, if more people opted out for the physical pat down, it might cause such lines that they'd need to change their tactics and not make the general public feel like a suspicious heard of cattle.

    I just make sure to get there a few minutes early for this....

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    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........