SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Appearing first in Google Assistant and Google Photos, Google Lens uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) to specifically identify things in the frame of a smartphone camera.
In Google's demo, not only did Google Lens identify a flower, but the species of flower. The demo also showed the automatic login to a wireless router when Google Lens was pointed at the router barcodes. And finally, Google Lens was shown identifying businesses by sight, popping up Google Maps cards for each establishment.
Google Lens is shiny and fun. But from the resulting media commentary, it was clear that the real implications were generally lost.
The common reaction was: "Oooh, look! Another toy for our smartphones! Isn't A.I. amazing!" In reality, Google showed us a glimpse of the future of general-purpose sensing. Thanks to machine learning, it's now possible to create a million different sensors in software using only one actual sensor -- the camera.
In Google's demo, it's clear that the camera functions as a "super-sensor." Instead of a flower-identification sensor, a bar-code reader and a retail-business identifier, Google Lens is just one all-purpose super-sensor with software-based, A.I.-fueled "virtual sensors" built in software either locally or in the cloud.
Talking about the Internet of Things (IoT) four years ago, the phrase "trillion sensor world" came into vogue in IT circles. Futurists vaguely imagined a trillion tiny devices with a trillion antennas and a trillion batteries (that had to be changed a trillion times a year).
In this future, we would be covered in wearable sensors. All merchandise and machinery would be tagged with RFID chips that would alert mounted readers to their locations. Special purpose sensors would pervade our homes, offices and workplaces.
We were so innocent then -- mostly about the promise and coming ubiquity of A.I. and machine learning.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 22 2017, @03:27AM (6 children)
The AI is with you, all the time. Not just you, but millions of other people. All day, every day. It watches you and your spouse. It watches how you interact with your children. It watches how you interact with your elderly relatives. It watches your driving. It listens as you curse your boss. It's there when your mistress is. It hears and watches as you interact with sales clerks. Everything you do, if you carry your own i-Thing, and most of everything you do if you don't carry your own i-Thing.
Google's AI will become the pre-crime unit, soon. No need to keep some precocious kids doped up in a swimming pool, or anything like that. Artificial intelligence, and it's always watching. Soon, it will be to late to turn the damned phone off. Right now, Google already knows which government actors are dirt bags. It already knows which BLM people are only there to scam the system. It knows which cops are even worse dirt bags.
Oh, Running Man, too. If you somehow become a threat to some goal that the AI finds desirable, the evidence will be heavily edited, long before any human gets involved into any inquiry. People make mistakes, and leave artifacts behind when tampering with evidence. The AI learns from all those mistakes, and won't make them.
Dystopia isn't very far away, people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @03:56AM (4 children)
"Soon, it will be to late to turn the damned phone off."
We're already there, there are hidden batteries so that even removing the main battery means someone could listen in on your for another 5-30 mins probably. Powering the phone off does nothing, phones can be remotely turned on. I'm tempted to get a serious metal case with some sound proofing just to carry my phone around in.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 22 2017, @05:07AM (2 children)
Same with a Smart TV.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday May 22 2017, @09:40AM (1 child)
Same with a smart anything really.
The "internet of things" will be a barrel of fun. We are just starting with the hard core dystopia, it can get a lot worse.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday May 22 2017, @10:51AM
Quite true. No telling what kind of "riders" that manufacturers of in-home always-on internet-connected devices will incorporate for their business partners.
Just like all the javascript riders we find on high-traffic business sites these days.
Especially with all these "Copyright/Intellectual Property protection" laws in place that mandate an ignorant user base which will be - by law - kept in the dark about what's going on behind their back.
So the hapless high technology adopter that brings this into his home may likely discover he has a major problem of things getting out, and have no idea of how its happening.
Smoke a joint, in your own home, go to jail. You did not know your TV camera was beaming pictures of what you were doing when you were watching the porn, no? Or maybe find a line on your Spokeo listing as to whether or not you make your bed every day, what you eat, and how long it takes you to pee, or get a premium raise from your insurance company because they caught you eating the wrong stuff. Or get a visit from the animal care unit because you were caught feeding your dog table scraps instead of the government sanctioned dog food. This list could go on forever....
Maybe I am a bit too pessimistic here... a smart TV with remote cameras could come in very handy for catching cheating spouses in the act. Their cellphones already are very useful for this.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday May 22 2017, @05:39AM
Our man flint with James Coburn already covered the home phone listening in on you in the late 60's. One of the ultimate enemies was the 'Ma-Bell' entity.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/our_man_flint/ [rottentomatoes.com]
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @11:06AM
While my choice to not have kids was made for other reasons, this adds another one. I can probably survive the next ~30+ years, but right now I'd feel really bad if I had kids that were growing up into this brave new surveillance state.