Computer Vision News - June 2016

CVN: What worries you the most? What worries me the most is research about being able to predict decisions that you are going to make, based on your facial expressions, with about 10- 15% higher accuracy [than human prediction]. This super-human performance is being used against people who do not have the knowledge of how it could be used against them. If, for example, the algorithm doing facial expression analysis works to know the purchase decision that you will make, that could be highly manipulative, at the point that you do not know that you are being manipulated while in fact you are, with a 75% accuracy. You do not know anymore what you want but these algorithms know and will ultimately guide your life. It’s not only computer vision, it’s accumulation of big data from multiple sources being fused together in order to manipulate you. That may sound quite dystopic, but that’s what companies already do. CVN: Let’s move to more optimistic subjects: what encourages you the most in the future of these technologies? Harvey: The contribution of computer vision is great in the automation of industrial technology, in food processing and in the detection of anomalies in the production line. It has a very positive effect on improving production quality. I focus more on the critical part of it because there are already quite a few people working on the positive business. Biometrics is very interesting but I see the way it is implemented in the U.S. happening via a partnership between the private sector and the government, when the solutions are temporary and unregulated. The result is that you start with the face, but after that successively come fingerprint, iris scan, multispectral veins, gait detection, micro-features and micro-motion analysis. Each of these biometrics being limited, in that it is not completely unique among the population, the most effective technique is the one we are heading towards: a very invasive multi- modal biometric identification system . Google’s pill, once swallowed, emits some sort of signal which functions as an identifier which is actually embedded in you. How much are we going to give up? Our DNA is probably next. “ What worries me the most is research about being able to predict decisions that you are going to make, based on your facial expressions ” 10 Computer Vision News Guest ©Adam Harvey