Our Ubiquitous Surveillance Society Is Getting Closer and Closer

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The MIT Technology Review updates us on the progress in computer lip reading:

In one project, a team from the University of Oxford’s Department of Computer Science has developed a new artificial-intelligence system called LipNet. As Quartz reported, its system was built on a data set known as GRID, which is made up of well-lit, face-forward clips of people reading three-second sentences….When tested, the system was able to identify 93.4 percent of words correctly. Human lip-reading volunteers asked to perform the same tasks identified just 52.3 percent of words correctly.

….Another team from Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, which has been working with Google DeepMind, has bitten off a rather more difficult task. Instead of using a neat and consistent data set like GRID, it’s been using a series of 100,000 video clips taken from BBC television. These videos have a much broader range of language, with far more variation in lighting and head positions….The Oxford and DeepMind team managed to create an AI that was able to identify 46.8 percent of all words correctly.

….Differences aside, both experiments show AI vastly outperforming humans at lip-reading.

For some reason, this had never occurred to me as a near-term use of AI—despite Stanley Kubrick’s warning half a century ago about the dangers of berserk computers who can lip read.

But of course, it makes total sense. Reliable, widespread use of computer lip reading is still a little ways off, but it’s pretty obvious that it will start to work tolerably well in real-life situations within a few more years. The implications for our future panopticon society are pretty obvious.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate