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This week we're looking at a video displaying the utility, efficiency, and almost always accurate classifications of a "thing classifier". The first thing you noticed is how fast the classifier recognizes things, especially "persons" considering how drastic someone can look depending on their hair is done, their body shape, or how they are dressed. It's a remarkable feat of technology. The fact that they recognize people so fast and the visualization of their classifications in the video is starting to make me think that it's completely plausible when Facebook recognizes your friend completely accurately, who is out of focus and 20ft away, and suggests tagging them in a photo.
To the left we have an example of the "thing classifier" working great in a busy frame outlining them almost perfectly. We can see all the different angles a person can take, their skin colors, their clothing, etc. that the classifier has no problem recognizing. The two kids on the bottom right I didn't even notice myself until I scanned all the boxes. The algorithm recognizes people and shapes better than me sometimes! In the picture you can see too that it recognized a cup vs a bowl. Being able to distinguish that in this picture that is absolutely surrounded by bowls is impressive on its own as well.
Even with all the good things I have said, there's bound to be some flaws. Sometimes colors and lighting will more closely display a resemblance to something else, just as some natural camouflage animals might take advantage of, will mess with the recognizer and have them output false positives. To the left and right we see a hawk absolutely be falsely recognized as a dog and a person respectfully.
The applications of this software can easily go for a more ethical approach or a corrupt approach.
- Beneficially (in the sense of recognizing how many people there are and not necessarily looking at details) you can perform research on the population or traffic of an event provided the event doesn't already have a turnstile or something along those lines. I can imagine that you can measure the trend of population density of Millenium Park throughout a month. Whoever needs that information can use it to find the high of the month and plan for an event that may garner more publicity on the high day of the month.
- In a not so ethical application of this system, it can be implemented in an authoritarian approach, of one could be in the suffocatingly policing of a people. The system can have someone's facial recognition data on file and keep track of whomever whenever they want, keeping people in their place so to speak. In fact, China has plans to require their citizens to use Face ID to be able to get a new phone number or have access to the internet. With this application, you will have a Social Credit Score that validates your rights in the country. Not so different than a certain Black Mirror episode.
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