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Seoul To Install AI Cameras For Crime Detection (zdnet.com) 35

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Cameras with artificial intelligence (AI) software that the South Korean government claims can detect the likelihood of crime will be installed in Seoul within the year. The Seocho District of South Korea's capital and Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ERTI), a national research institute, said they will install 3,000 cameras at the district by July. The cameras will use AI software that processes the location, time, and behavior patterns of passersby to measure the likelihood of a crime taking place.

The cameras will automatically measure whether somebody is walking normally or tailing someone. It will also detect what passersby are wearing -- such as hats, masks, or glasses -- and what they are carrying with them such as bags or dangerous objects that have a strong possibility of being used to commit a crime. The cameras will also consider whether it is day or night. They will use this information to deduce the probability that a crime will take place, they claim. If the rate exceeds a certain rate, the cameras will alert the district office and nearby police stations to send personnel to the location. Going forward, Seocho and ETRI plan to analyze 20,000 court sentencing documents and crime footage to deduce crime patterns for the AI software to memorize.

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Seoul To Install AI Cameras For Crime Detection

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  • Zero (Score:4, Interesting)

    by geekymachoman ( 1261484 ) on Friday January 03, 2020 @08:24AM (#59581850)
    This affects me... not at all. However... as technology is progressing, we're (as a species) increasingly using or trying to use it in some dystopian fashion, "prevent crime" is an excuse. Either purse snatching, or terrorist nonsense. Both happens of course, but none will be solved by this technology or fingerprinting at the airports, or whatever else. The only thing that happens is that the government gets bigger control over your life, and more influence in dictating how you should live said life.

    Every time i read news like this... I think to myself.. "step closer to going `off-grid`... ".

    Now while writing this... I'm thinking.. does that still exists, and is it still "legal" ?

    In this screwed up world, I wouldn't be surprised if i got arrested for even thinking about things like this. Or maybe my children will, if this surveillance & control trend continues
    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Why would any advance nation allow "purse snatching" to become something its citizens have to accept for decades?

      Re "terrorist nonsense"...
      Decades of NK action was not "nonsense"

      Re "none will be solved by this technology"... every face as a digital file in SK would be a start as a new face from NK would not "fit" any created history of that person.

      Re "surveillance"... SK needs a lot of that due to the decades of direct action by Communist NK...
      • Apparently you don't understand what the OP is saying. The cameras will not stop purse snatching; yet, they are being sold as a solution to purse snatching. See the problem? See your own sig for crying out loud.

        • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          Re "will not stop purse snatching"... the person doing the crime can be tracked... their face detected... making purse snatching a crime with a real risk...
          Re 'yet, they are being sold as a solution to purse snatching"... lets see how it works out and the police numbers.
          Link that to some criminals identity card... got the face as a citizen? Face not on file... ? That becomes interesting.
          • This whole thing would be shot down as racist in some US States since some people cannot get legal documents already, or they live in a neighborhood that they don't "have access" to an office to apply for such documentation (the DMV).

            Stop trying to profile our undocumented workers and registered voters who don't have a driver's license!

          • Re:Zero (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Friday January 03, 2020 @10:09AM (#59582164)
            Nope - because police departments around the world are understaffed and underfunded and give absolutely zero shits about petty crimes like purse snatching, no matter how many cameras there are. The only time they care is if it happens to one of their own, or some politician/celebrity that can raise a big stink. The cameras are sold under the idea of "deterrence" just like in the UK, but they won't deter shit once people figure out that nobody is going to come after them. Meanwhile you'll have all sorts of creepy companies applying for and paying for the right to peek through those cameras and compile data, though...
            • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
              Re ' because police departments around the world are understaffed and underfunded'...
              Not every nation works like that with a national ID card, passport images...
              They count every citizen and ensure every passport is seen "in" and "out" of the nation...
              People who enter and dont exit on the same passport on time are quickly found...

              Re "petty crimes like purse snatching

              Its not "petty" to the person who has to prove their ID after a purse snatching...
              Why would any criminal act like that be "petty"?
            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              Nope - because police departments around the world are understaffed and underfunded

              Bullcrap. America is an example of a country that is over-policed and the police are over-funded.

              Crime rates have fallen by half since the early 1990s, yet America has more police than ever. Since there isn't enough real crime to keep them busy, they spend their money on military equipment and assault vehicles. They lobby for more and more criminalization of personal behavior.

              More police means more arrests and more incarceration, but that often leads to more crime, since jails and prisons are often crime

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Re "will not stop purse snatching"... the person doing the crime can be tracked... their face detected... making purse snatching a crime with a real risk...

            Nope. Does not really work well with people not trying to prevent being identified, and after a few weeks every purse-snatcher will know what to do in order to not be identifiable at all.

            Re 'yet, they are being sold as a solution to purse snatching"... lets see how it works out and the police numbers.

            Are you serious? You seem to be unaware that numbers in these cases get doctored and that the cameras will stay regardless of what effect they have on purse-snatching. Incidentally, the police does not care about purse-snatching in most cases and that is the actual problem. No amount of cameras will make any difference here

            • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
              Re "people not trying to prevent being identified"... thats the AI part SK is working on...
              Re "cases get doctored" .. SK is not the USA?... or UK?...
              Re "police does not care about purse-snatching" ... police in SK might not be under the same political control as police in US and UK cities...
              Re "No amount of cameras will make any difference here."... lets wait and see what SK can do with the police tech, a budget and very skilled computer experts :)
              vs the decades of city politics in the US and UK :)
          • Didn't work in the UK, won't work in South Korea.

        • When does it notify the cop to put down their donut and coffee and begin the 15 minute journey to the camera's location? (Or am I being too optimistic? 45 minutes?)
        • The cameras will not stop purse snatching

          The problem with this argument is that if it turns out that the cameras DO reduce purse snatching, you have lost the debate.

          You should instead argue that we should not give up essential liberty, even at the price of less safety.

          That we may not actually be safer is not the core issue.

          • First:

            https://www.schneier.com/blog/... [schneier.com]

            S. Korea's system will fare little better.

            Second: if you had actually read what I said, you would see that the people who are installing the cameras KNOW THEY WON'T REDUCE CRIME. It isn't a matter of whether they will as a windfall effect; it's that the people installing them HAVE NO INTENTION OF USING THEM TO STOP CRIME AS A PRIMARY FUNCTION. They are there to monitor everyone. The people most-likely to be monitored and tracked are the ones who will go to no effort

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. The whole "prevention" thing that is usually claimed is a big, fat lie. What cameras can do (maybe) is help with after-the-fact determination what happened, they cannot "prevent" anything. And, in fact, with minimal care on their side, you cannot even reliably (or at all) identify perpetrators of crimes from the footage.

      What cameras can do is generally identify citizens (with somewhat reasonable accuracy), where they are, what they do. Ideal for the next fascist government to find as many "criminals

  • by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Friday January 03, 2020 @08:25AM (#59581854)

    The cameras will use AI software that processes the location, time, and behavior patterns of passersby to measure the likelihood of a crime taking place.

    That sounds like crime prediction to me.

    "You haven't committed a crime yet . . . but you look like you will commit one . . . you act like a criminal."

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re "That sounds like crime prediction to me.".. Given the way NK likes to place its trusted people in SK ... that is what is needed.
      • "I am allowed to commit a crime, because he committed a crime first! That means I can call my crime 'punishment'!"
        Or rather: "...because he *might* commit a crime."
        Or, in essence: "Waah, bit he started it, mom!"

        Great logic there, toddler!
        You have just become evil because your enemy *might* be evil. Leaving only one side that provably is evil right here right now.

        Why stop at totalitarian surveillance though? Why not just kill anyone who might be a criminal?
        Got a penis? Must be a rapist! Lop off his head!
        Amaz

        • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          Re "*might* commit a crime."" SK has to be able to detect NK spies as part of its nation wide ID system.
          Creating/sharing/using a nations ID card to then spy with would be a crime... by another nations spies...
          Re 'totalitarian surveillance' its not really totalitarian surveillance when another nation has its active spy networks in the nation...
          Re "Amazing logic!" SK cant upgrade its police database networks due to "evil"?
          Thats their CCTV network, their nations laws and their nations ID card system
    • by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Friday January 03, 2020 @08:49AM (#59581892) Homepage Journal

      well some of the crime has people acting completely normally before it... so maybe normal will end up as criminal? or maybe you need go gangnam style dance all the time to not be suspicious?

      I would imagine though that the point would be to point the video viewer coppers to view the right feed though. it does sound like a lot of "ai ai ai give me money aia iai ai aia ai aia ai give me money" bollocks though if they're _going_to_ run through the court documents and video footage.

      you see, I don't believe for a second that they have recognition software to deploy like they claim at all. there would be fairly obvious very very very very lucrative military deals for such software and installing it on some random cameras in korea would be quite far down the list of markets for it. IF THEY ACTUALLY HAD IT!

      kinda you know, which countries would buy a magical dousing rod to detect bombs? usa surely? yes if it worked. because it didn't work iraq and thailand were the perfect buyers.

    • The cameras will use AI software that processes the location, time, and behavior patterns of passersby to measure the likelihood of a crime taking place.

      That sounds like crime prediction to me.

      "You haven't committed a crime yet . . . but you look like you will commit one . . . you act like a criminal."

      ... engage minigun ... possible threat eliminated ... all cleanup robots converge on isle 5.

    • by Jaime2 ( 824950 )
      I don't think the people pushing this did the math. It's like terrorist prediction - unless you can reduce the false positives to nearly zero, then this is a waste of resources. Every false positive created by this system is going to redirect an enforcement resource. It's probably only a matter of months before someone watches "Die Hard with a Vengeance" and decides to occupy all the police with watching hat/bag men and then gets away with a big robbery.
    • "That sounds like crime prediction to me."

      That sounds scary, but if it appears someone is about to walk into a bank with a gun and ski mask, we are generally ok with arresting them BEFORE they perform the act.

  • Why do you keep saying "artificial intelligence"??

    It is just a damn universal function, based on weight matrix multiplication. Not an intelligent being.
    And clearly, neither are you.

    I want publicly saying bullshit like that to be illegal!
    Freedom of the the press can't cover outright false statements.

  • Mr. Yakamoto.

If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a conclusion. -- William Baumol

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