Big Brother's World: What Artificial Intelligence Cameras Can Do

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Something strange, frightening and amazing happens to modern cameras - they become intelligent.

Until recently, almost all cameras, be they smartphones, regular point-and-shoot cameras, or video surveillance systems, were like eyes without any kind of intelligence.

They were able to capture whatever you point them to, but they didn't really understand what they were filming. Even the basic facts about the structure of the world were unknown to them. In 2018, your smartphone does not yet automatically detect that you are photographing yourself naked, and does not offer additional protection for such photos.

However, everything is changing. Next generation cameras understand what they see. Now these are the eyes connected to the brain. These are machines that no longer just recognize what you are showing them, but can use this knowledge to offer intriguing and sometimes eerie possibilities.

At first, these cameras promise better image quality and capturing moments that were impossible to capture with those stupid cameras that were used before. Google for this offers a new camera Clips, already on sale. She uses machine learning to automatically take snapshots of people, pets, and anything else that interests her.

Others are using artificial intelligence to make cameras more useful. You know that the newest iPhone X uses facial recognition to unlock. A startup called Lighthouse AI plans to do something similar for your home using a security camera with visual intelligence. When you install such a camera at the front door, it can constantly analyze the situation, warning you if, for example, the person hired to walk the dogs did not come or your children did not return home on time after school.

It's not hard to imagine the useful and even quite frightening capabilities of cameras that are capable of recognizing the world around them. Digital cameras have revolutionized photography, but so far it has been just a revolution in scale: thanks to microchips, cameras have become smaller and cheaper, and we have started to carry them with us everywhere.

Now artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the way cameras work.

Smart cameras will allow you to analyze images with the accuracy of a detective, thus creating a new type of surveillance - not only from the government, but also from those around you, including those closest to you.

Companies making such devices are aware of the risk of privacy violations. Therefore, many enter the field with caution, not skimping on protection for their products, which they say reduces anxiety.

Take Google Clips, for example, which I have been using for a week and a half. This is one of the most unusual devices I've ever encountered. The camera is about the size of a lollipop tin and has no screen. The front panel contains only a lens and a button. Pressing the button allows you to take a photo, but it is used only when you really need it.

Most of the time, you just rely on the intuition of a device that can recognize facial expressions and lighting conditions, and is also trained in framing and other specifics of creating good shots. It also recognizes familiar faces - the people you come across the most.

The Clips, which costs $ 249, takes pictures on its own and is completely discreet. The camera has a convenient case with a large flexible clip that allows you to attach it to a jacket, place it on a table, carry it in your hands, or simply position it in place with a good view. Further, artificial intelligence will do everything for you.

Clips observes the scene, and when she sees something that looks like an interesting shot, she takes a 15-second burst of photos (sort of like a short-g.webp

I went to Disneyland with my family last week and barely took a few pictures in two very photo-friendly days. Instead of me, this tiny device did all the work, filming a couple of hundred short videos during such a mini-vacation.

Some of them turned out to be pretty good, as if they were very good shots that I myself took with a smartphone. For example, here's a clip of my son driving a car.

But what was really interesting was the shots that I myself would not have deliberately shot.

Aesthetically, these photographs are not masterpieces, but in terms of emotions, they reach a higher level. The clips caught the moments when my children were fooling around and fighting in endless lines of Disneyland, playing ball at home, dancing - all of these are too spontaneous or simply banal moments for which I would not bother to get my camera. But, probably, just such moments in some 30 years will be able to depict the picture of our life much more accurately.

Regular readers of my column know that exciting moments in my children's lives are special experiences for me. I even equipped my house with cameras to record a kind of reality TV show of our lives.

You don't have to be as crazy as I am to capture valuable moments, because your kids or pets are constantly doing what you would like to remember. With a smartphone, this is far from always possible, but a smart camera does not lose sight of anything, and you can not be afraid to ruin the moment in an attempt to capture it.

Obviously, creating a camera that takes pictures without you being involved is quite problematic.

This raises understandable surveillance concerns: that Google might be spying on you, or that you might be using a camera to spy on someone else.

Google solves this problem in two ways. First, the device is not connected to the Internet in most cases. It can take pictures without it, and you need your smartphone to view and save clips. Secondly, artificial intelligence is built into the device itself, and you don't even need a Google account to use the camera.

Eva Snee, who leads Google's research on user interactions with Clips, said privacy is a top priority. The company is convinced that this is why many will really want to purchase such a device. Cameras do not scare people when they are used deliberately and the person himself is involved in the process, added Schnee.

Clips is reminiscent of other similar products such as Snap's Spectacles and Google Glass, the company's failed attempt to convince users to wear glasses that can photograph.

To avoid repetition of mistakes, Clips is designed like a normal camera. When it is on, the white LED blinks, indicating that recording is possible. At the same time, she is not able to record audio, as this might already seem like sheer surveillance.

The Lighthouse surveillance system, which I have also used for several weeks, should be an improvement on the internet-connected security cameras that have become quite popular lately. These devices can be annoying as they fire whenever movement is detected.

A special feature of Lighthouse is a camera system that can “sense” 3D space and learn to recognize faces, thus avoiding false alarms. It also has an excellent interface with support for voice commands, which makes it possible to speak questions like: "What did the children do when I was not there?" The camera will show a video of your children taken while you were away.

Lighthouse, which sells for $ 299 and requires a $ 10 monthly subscription, feels like an unfinished product that needs some work. She is able to quite accurately recognize family members, but at the same time she can mistake a balloon that has flown into the living room for an intruder who has sneaked into the house.

Lighthouse is a young company and I believe its software will improve over time. I believe that such a system can really be useful for people who constantly wonder what is happening at home in their absence. Want to know if your dog is climbing onto the couch? Ask Lighthouse: she will be able to recognize the dog and immediately show you everything on the record. (Well, or almost everything. I don't have a dog, so when I asked this question, the system showed a recording with my child pushing a teddy bear off the couch.)

But what if you're worried about the behavior of your spouse, not the dog? I trust my wife, but for the sake of this column I asked the device to show me records with a stranger in the house. Lighthouse showed a video of a nanny that the system had never seen before.

This was an example of outright spying on his family. But this is an obvious possibility for a camera that understands its surroundings too well.

Alex Teichman, chief executive of Lighthouse, noted that they can work to protect against family surveillance, for example, by limiting recognition only to unknown persons. He also added that the system has many detailed privacy protections that allow you to disable any recording in the presence of certain family members.

His answer struck me as convincing. Both Lighthouse and Clips are designed to avoid abuse. It should be noted that none of these devices allow surveillance to a greater extent than we can already afford with our smartphones. Continuous surveillance is the norm for 2018.

And yet these devices are harbingers of the future. Tomorrow all cameras will have such opportunities. And they will no longer just look at you, they will understand everything.