Recent news reports state that Artificial Intelligence is
being used in video games and similar simulated scenarios to track the movement
of people through walls. The process uses Wi-Fi signals and RFID technology.
Essentially, AI programs are shown multiple examples of people walking and
moving around a home, and at the same time, the AI monitors the reflections
generated in the frequencies of the RFID and W-Fi fields. To put it into a more
understandable concept, imagine a home as being a swimming pool and the water
is the RFID and Wi-Fi fields. As a person wades through the water, they can be
seen directly – but they can also be tracked using the ripples that they send
through the water. An understanding of each movement and the corresponding
ripple (a dive creates a big splashy ripple, stealthy wading a very subtle one, and swimming produces
a line of regular wavelets that show directionality and even speed) can help
someone to tell where the person is an what they are doing – even when they can
no longer see the person in the water any more.
In much the way described above, AI uses minute changes in
the RFID fields to track where a person is and even tell what they are doing –
and it can do it through walls!
Most people will instantly be horrified by the idea: the
thought of being watched is an unpleasant one, the thought of being unable to
hide behind a door or wall to escape scrutiny is even more so. While artificial
intelligence is not a person, and computers do not judge (not yet, anyway!) the
thought of being surveilled in the privacy of our homes is creepy – and that is
before we even consider the possibility of hackers: those who might try to gain
control of the artificial intelligence. Even being able to access the AI’s
database and perhaps viewing recordings, might give unscrupulous people enough
information to break into a home, or to cause mischief or embarrassment to
innocent people. Bearing all this in mind, is there any reason why AI should be
taught to track people when they don’t necessarily want to be seen.
However, this innovation is being developed by the medical
profession so that elderly people can be monitored while permitting them to
stay in their own homes for longer. While this is admirable, the installation
of such a system could potentially make them into targets as the possession of
the system immediately announces the vulnerability of those living in that
address…