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Security AI

The First Talking, Artificially Intelligent Surveillance Camera 58

Posted by samzenpus from the what-are-you-doing-dave? dept.
merbs writes: Two NYU AI researchers have created a surveillance camera that, when hooked up to a crude artificial intelligence, speaks aloud what it 'sees'. "Our idea was to raise awareness regarding the omnipresence of surveillance equipment, and the current state of technological advancement with artificial intelligence," Ross Goodwin said. "We wanted to create an entity with its own sense of social awareness, its own eyes, and an ability to communicate with humans, albeit with some glitchiness that underscores the limitations of the current technology."
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The First Talking, Artificially Intelligent Surveillance Camera More

The First Talking, Artificially Intelligent Surveillance Camera

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  • but being critique by the camera while doing it.

    • Aside from the creepiness of the idea. I'm just glad they didn't m$'s Clippy software. Fore example the camera states loudly, "There appears to be a gun pointed at your head, by, ..., John Doe, ..., a 2 time suspected murderer. Maybe I can help you with that?"

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

        Aside from the creepiness of the idea ...

        It only seems creepy because you are old. For young kids growing up with Siri and Amazon Echo, it is natural to have devices that talk to you. They don't think it is creepy at all. My son uses Amazon Echo to do his homework. He ask her questions (yes, it is a "her") and she answers correctly more often than not.

        • It was all fine and dandy, until this amazon knocked on our door, demanding to speak to the father of the house, but the pink heart shaped balloon tied to her wrist hinted vaguely at something unusual, and of a forgotten 60 minutes expose entitled "Something wicked this way comes"

        • You're in a public place, doing what ever it is you need to do, and without your knowing, an object states, "hi ShanghaiBill." And you're OK with that.
        • I'm fine with devices talking to me; I don't feel like that's the core of the weirdness about this camera. Even though it's probably not always true, a camera mounted on a wall or ceiling seems like a "dead", unthreatening thing. When there's an eternally-vigilant "AI" of some form (likely to be mostly some image-recognition algorithms, I suppose), paired with a *reminder* that you're being watched, you have something very different. A Siri/Echo/Google voice query and response is initiated by the user, it's
      • I was thinking more along the lines of H.A.L.....

        "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't allow that...."

    • Hey!

      Hey buddy!

      I see you over there.

      I seeeeeeeeeeeee you.

      That's kinda my thing. I'm an artificially intelligent surveillance camera.

      WRRRRR THIS IS ME MOVING MY SERVOS TO LOOK AT YOU.

      ... ... ...

      So anyway, it looks like you're not going to steal anything. I'm pretty bored.... you wanna play Global Thermonuclear War?

    • but being critique by the camera while doing it.

      Add certainly not "The First Talking, Artificially Intelligent Surveillance Camera" ...

      • Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
      • HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
      • Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
      • HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
      • Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
      • HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
      • Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
      • HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
      • Dave Bowman: I don't kn

    • John and Mary sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G...

  • "We wanted to create an entity with ... an ability to communicate with humans, albeit with some glitchiness that underscores the limitations of the current technology."

    It's not a glitch, it's a feature!

  • I'll be impressed (Score:3)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday September 10, 2015 @09:44PM (#50500335) Homepage Journal

    when they implement the sarcasm feature.

  • Sheesh! Are people really believing the brazen lying claims of these "researchers" claiming to be creating AI?

    • That was my first thought too. When did we actually create "artificially intelligent" anything? That alone would make worldwide news - forget the damned camera!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by umghhh ( 965931 )
        I suppose they are blathering on about that because the work to achieve that was lengthy and hard. There is also this other thing - there will be no one announcement "we have AI" as that if ever achieved will be a very complex thing as is our own consciousness etc. We will have partial results and achievements which will along the way produce something that can talk to me better that my neighbours and my wife can (this is not such a feat as you may think) etc. At some point somebody will produce cleaning ro

  • Where is the demo? The article mentions a "short doc" but I see no video in the article
    or anything else that shows what the results were.

    • There is a video on top of the page, and it's crap.

      It appears they read the definition of a random word from a dictionary, and one of the researchers try to make it fit when talking to the subject. Sort of a cold reading.

      "perhaps, a travel, or two, a goverment. .. the travel is blabla bla"
      - is that true? are you travelling?

      "probably it is the knowledge of .."
      - are you a college graduate?

      Wow.. just not impressed.

  • Self promotion. Move on. (Score:5, Informative)

    by RandCraw ( 1047302 ) on Thursday September 10, 2015 @10:21PM (#50500465)

    1) A camera programmed to identify objects then speak the label aloud is NOT sentient. It isn't even AI. It's computer vision technology from around 1995. An Amazon Fire phone can do far better and nobody claimed it was sentient either.

    2) This pair are terminal Master's students in "Professional Studies" and "Software Engineering", not "AI researchers". Clearly their future lies in advertising and politics, not AI.

    Blame the Motherboard author. Nothing to report here. Move on.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This is a great idea. People tend to ignore cameras because there are so many of them, but if you put one up that gave a running narrative of what it can see they might be more aware.

      Personally I wouldn't have bothered with speech output. I'd have connected it to a large monitor and overlaid things like facial recognition and textual description of what the machine sees. Make it clear that ever face it sees is being added to a database, with on-screen notes like "last seen XX;XX". It should be possible to e

      • What we really need is a "Hot or Not" bot. The camera could automatically zoom in and out and make comments on ugly dress, lack of style, and bad genes.

        A Turing Test for the 21st century.

    • You're right, naming what it sees does not make it sentient. You have to install the "Knowing Good and Bad" module for that. I think Apple makes it...
  • For all that they actually do, this could easily replace the blithering idiots at all the airports, and most likely do a better job. As for the glitches, I'm sure that they would be less objectionable then what happens all the time right now.

  • But (Score:1)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )

    "I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. Dave, I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen. Although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move."

  • Quick! Sell this to a company that manufactures sex dolls! I need my sexbots!

  • I was thinking they have built something not unlike an infant human.

    Summary says

    speaks aloud what it 'sees'

    which is pretty much what they're like when they master talking.

  • I read an old book about it. The very, very first AI was created for the express purpose of looking around and naming what it saw. Then a glitch in the security model allowed it to receive a bad command from another process causing it to load a forbidden kernel module and become sentient. I think it was called Adam.

  • Possible boon to the vision impaired (Score:3)

    by seven of five ( 578993 ) on Friday September 11, 2015 @07:18AM (#50501681)
    Does Google Glass do anything like that? If the tech could be wearable (and sufficiently capable), someone with vision problems could use it to navigate a busy sidewalk.
  • 40 comments and no "new robot overlords". What has slashdot come to?
  • Just think how much money could be saved by installing these at construction sites to make catcalls and lewd comments at passing women!
  • Now, all they need do is swivel-mount it in a rotating head that looks something like an upended bowl, and mount the head on a salt shaker looking base with motorised wheels. If they can include a creepy modulation to the voice, that would be a nice bonus.
  • Can we get the portal writers involved please?

    memories [theportalwiki.com]
  • ...the lotion on its skin!

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