Vision Robotics Determine Behavioral Patterns

A recent report published in the New York Times revealed that computers placed strategically in prison yards could read the body language and faces of prisoners, warning prison officials of potentially hostile inmates.

Research shows that machines could possibly invade our society. Computer vision is now able to read a face and judge the heart beat and emotional responses to various situations. It could be used in hospitals to determine heart conditions and in schools to determine a child’s behavior. Its use in public places like the super market could assess a customer’s response to a particular product or object. In an endeavor to put this feature to use in security and anti terrorism sectors, DARPA has introduced a program called the Mind’s Eye. This will help communicate visual data to other computers or humans. One could deduce from this that while humans could err in their observations, robots would be permanently on guard and use huge databanks. Software that could recognize faces facial could help trace a lost child or a suspected criminal, while simultaneously monitoring traffic or the weather. However, development of the relevant software has not kept pace with hardware development. Devices such as Air Force’s Gorgon Stare, which has a nine-camera UAV attachment to capture images of a whole city all at once are ready but lack the software needed to sift through data and analyze it.