Iterate.ai Open Sources a New AI System That Can Recognize Weapons (iterate.ai) 42
davejenkins (Slashdot reader #99,111) has come a long way from his days working at Red Hat. He's now the VP of Digital Technology at Iterate.AI, which makes a low-code platform for building production-ready AI applications. And this week he shared an unusual announcement with Slashdot. "We've developed an AI that uses computer vision to recognize guns, rifles, knives, robber masks and tactical vests.
"We want to help the community, so we've made an open-source version of this free (as in beer and speech) for schools and religious organizations. The code is on Github. We welcome deployments, refinements, and feedback!"
More details from the company here: Rather than selling the software and the design, Iterate.ai open-sourced its work, giving the technology away for free to non-profit groups and schools. "We believe that school tax dollars should go to buying computers and supplies (items needed every day) rather than paying for threat detection software which is unlikely to be needed — but potentially lifesaving in the event of an armed intruder situation," said Jon Nordmark, CEO, Iterate.ai.
The system was built by Iterate.ai's AI team, half of whom were part of Apple's Secret Products Group that invented the first iPhone. The team trained the model on more than 20,000 intrusion and armed robbery videos, and brought in a former DEA agent to assist with live tests. The software runs on NVIDIA GPUs and instantly detects dozens of gun types, Kevlar vests, balaclavas, and knives. The system's automatic detection capabilities prompt an instant reaction, even before a human sees a threat indicator.
"The power and potential for AI to improve our world — especially when it comes to lifesaving protections that make schools and other locations safe from physical threats — is too important to restrict within expensive or proprietary confines," said Brian Sathianathan, CTO of Iterate.ai. "We're immensely proud of the weapons detection and threat awareness technology we've created, and to share it as a free and open source technology for schools and nonprofits to achieve greater security and safety."
Read more about their tool in USA Today
"We want to help the community, so we've made an open-source version of this free (as in beer and speech) for schools and religious organizations. The code is on Github. We welcome deployments, refinements, and feedback!"
More details from the company here: Rather than selling the software and the design, Iterate.ai open-sourced its work, giving the technology away for free to non-profit groups and schools. "We believe that school tax dollars should go to buying computers and supplies (items needed every day) rather than paying for threat detection software which is unlikely to be needed — but potentially lifesaving in the event of an armed intruder situation," said Jon Nordmark, CEO, Iterate.ai.
The system was built by Iterate.ai's AI team, half of whom were part of Apple's Secret Products Group that invented the first iPhone. The team trained the model on more than 20,000 intrusion and armed robbery videos, and brought in a former DEA agent to assist with live tests. The software runs on NVIDIA GPUs and instantly detects dozens of gun types, Kevlar vests, balaclavas, and knives. The system's automatic detection capabilities prompt an instant reaction, even before a human sees a threat indicator.
"The power and potential for AI to improve our world — especially when it comes to lifesaving protections that make schools and other locations safe from physical threats — is too important to restrict within expensive or proprietary confines," said Brian Sathianathan, CTO of Iterate.ai. "We're immensely proud of the weapons detection and threat awareness technology we've created, and to share it as a free and open source technology for schools and nonprofits to achieve greater security and safety."
Read more about their tool in USA Today
Quoting Mae West (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately, not Mae West - more likely Robocop (Score:2)
The only thing in your hand is a cellphone, but...
"Please put down your weapon - you have 20 seconds to comply."
Re: Unfortunately, not Mae West - more likely Robo (Score:3)
Wow, all that from something that just flags stuff huh? You may be terrified about ATMs, smart phones, computers in general, LLMs....
Basically everything in the world currently around you. It's illogical and reactionary thinking like this that stifles progress on many of the issues we face as a society. Guns are an issue, but for heavens sake don't talk about them or study the impact they have in any way, lest "They" take your toys away. Oh noes the They!!
Subsidized Healthcare? YOU COMMIE! How could you
Re: (Score:2)
The absolute best way to control a large population is with never ending emergencies and distractions.
Completely agree on this point.
I'm hopeful that at some point society starts ignoring the shouting children and starts paying attention to what's actively killing us.
That one also.
Never discuss something important lest progress be made and some rich fuck might not be able to pay off his 4th mistress. Unthinkable!!!
Folks who own the media definitely use it to distract from any encroachment by the masses on the purview of the rich and they certainly aren't my favorite people, either (the media or the rich). However, it's the government I think which is much more responsible for folks day-to-day woes and problems than the rich folks. Rich folks never stole 33% of of my income. Government does ever time I go to work. Rich folks don't subsidize oil & gas, create lockdowns
Iterate.ai Open Sources a New AI System That Can.. (Score:2, Troll)
..poorly recognize weapons with lots of false positives and failed detections while getting on the AI hype train
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Arguably, if the AI were able to simply determine the subject weren't Caucasian, false positives would in many cases be as good as a human.
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..poorly recognize weapons with lots of false positives and failed detections while getting on the AI hype train
In 20+ states it is legal to carry a firearm without a permit, and many more with a permit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You want to flag people for carrying a firearm in some location? I expect that to backfire, make it known that people carrying firearms will get flagged by computers as being a threat and it will attract people to carry weapons to have cause to challenge that in courts. A number of states wanted to ban any lawful carry of firearms by anyone other than police, military, and a few s
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Maybe some computer might help in identifying who to pay attention too in a crowd but that might end up being more of a distraction than an aid.
This is probably exactly it, there's not going to be any court issue since nobody is getting arrested for just possession off this but this is just an open source variety of the kind of tech already in pretty common use on CCTV systems. These systems already do people counting and tracking of people in and out of areas, dwell time, detection if people have fallen over, have backpacks and so on.
Really if this works it's exactly the solution you want from a CCTV system, something to reasonably filter out the
Don't fool yourself. Not for schools/religion. (Score:3, Interesting)
"We want to help the community, so we've made an open-source version of this free (as in beer and speech) for schools and religious organizations."
Nice cover story. When everyone from local taxpayers to governors realizes the low-budget school and non-profit church can't afford this, it'll be gladly taken over by any government who wishes to detect the "threat" of any citizen who might want or need to defend themselves from a tyrannical force.
Hell of an anti-2FA weapon you're developing there...would be shame if it fell into the "right" hands...you know, for the "childrens" sake.
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And furthermore we don't see you take up a gun against very recent threats of fascism (a guy claiming he'll rule as dixctator if elected), do we ?
What does this unhinged-sounding bullshit actually mean?
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So what, this is defense and as such should be available to anyone.
A tyrannical Government currently takes every opportunity to call for more and more attacks against the 2nd Amendment after every unhinged nutjob high on Big Pharmas products decides to harm and/or kill innocent citizens in all of those Unconstitutional "gun-free zones" that criminals love to target...a Government targeting every innocent citizen who dares to own an "assault" weapon (their bullshit term) to defend themselves and their family from the violence a tyrannical Government manufactures by calling
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And as usual you are projecting when accusing Biden of being a dictator (did I even read that shit right?) when the previous/next(?) guy SAID it's what he would be on day one.
BTW, I am neither D nor R, not being american, but the crap you pull there always splatter everywhere.
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So the solution to the gun problem is... more guns. As usual in the US. And nowhere else, by the way.
I'd more say the solution to the "gun" problem is addressing the actual problem of mental health, since far more American gun deaths are actually by suicide. Not that any lying dictator hell-bent on enacting another failed Assault Weapons Ban would actually tell you that little detail about American gun statistics. Or ever admit that banning kitchen knives would be far more effective at preventing death than banning "assault" weapons would.
Wonder why nowhere else do they feel the need to lie so hard about
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Hell of an anti-2FA weapon you're developing there...would be shame if it fell into the "right" hands...you know, for the "childrens" sake.
Well, it's either "for the children" or "against the terrorists". The fools in politics have no other justifications for stripping folks of any means to defend themselves, but they damn sure know they want to do it.
How about addressing the real problems? (Score:1)
Everyone is special. They deserve lots of money, to be famous, and to do nothing while getting maximum respect and catering. If every person on Earth was rich and famous there would be no need for any of these extreme acts.
Now git to it!
Not open source (Score:3)
we've made an open-source version of this ... free to non-profit groups and schools.
No, you haven't.
That is NOT what "open source" means.
That is a marketing strategy for a proprietary product.
Re:Not open source (Score:4, Informative)
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It's unfortunate that there is no clause stopping law enforcement/the IDF using it. They will be using the "AI said he had a gun" excuse soon.
Then again, I suppose if it's open source then it's easier to challenge in court.
NOT OPEN SOURCE (Score:1)
Parent says not open source.
Kid says "licensed under MIT."
Github has ONE reference in README.MD that says "MIT".
That's not "licensing" by any stretch of any lawyer or court's imagination. That's throwing out newspaper clippings of the next meat-sale advertisements to the wolves. Oh. They're not eating the newspaper? But it says "meat" on it.
If you want to RELEASE this UNDER A LICENSE then do say so.
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And also, yes - that is how USA copyright works. Simply declare whatever terms you want, doing a bad or ambiguous job of it just scares away timid users and makes any future courtroom enforcement for you more difficult. But it's not ambigu
Can It Detect Pot Hole In Road? (Score:2)
And dispatch crew to repair? Seems a fuck ton more useful.
Conceptually this is another self-driving car. (Score:2)
Not saying there won't be a showcase where it gets all the answer right.
Just saying the much, much simpler and older problem of using image recognition to manage a 1000 card MtG collection will demonstrate utterly inexplicable failures using only camera of a known high standard in good light with no moving objects, all items to be matched accurately available in the database and without possibility of false positives and negatives leading to a violent death.
In practice this is an idea only someone with insi
Recognize ... (Score:2)
Concealed carry?
rifles,
Maybe. But guitar cases.
knives,
Concealed carry?
robber masks
How do these differ from Covid masks?
and tactical vests.
Under puffy jackets? Das rayciss!
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Solution for problem that shouldn't exist (Score:3, Interesting)
"We believe that school tax dollars should go to buying computers and supplies (items needed every day) rather than paying for threat detection software which is unlikely to be needed — but potentially lifesaving in the event of an armed intruder situation,"
The solution is interesting, and Open Sourcing it is a cool move. But I have to ask - in how many other civilized, first-world, not-at-war-on-their-home-soil countries need such a solution in their schools? I suspect the answer to that is "none".
It's time to stop normalizing extreme violence in schools, and to start tackling the underlying societal sickness that causes it. School shootings shouldn't be enough of a 'thing' as to require extreme security measures in response.
balaclavas? (Score:2)
Unintended consequences... (Score:2)
Perhaps the authors never imagined that such a tool could be used by drone to identify and autonomously eliminate anyone carrying a gun... the military application of such an AI is just to tempting to ignore.
Imagine if the police could be followed around by a drone which would automatically shoot anyone carrying a gun, before they could get it pointed in the officer's direction? Imagine what this would do for "crowd control". Imagine that errors in judgement would be directed against a faceless corpora
ED-209 (Score:2)
Next step, putting it inside a gun-toting robot-dog because so many US cops run away from a school-shooting.
We already knows what happens next: See Robocop (1987), where the ED-209 massacres a board-meeting.
So police won't be able to take (holstered) guns into a (fraudulent) child-care centre, which happened in Australia. Many talking-heads were not happy. Also in Australia this year, a Qld police-officer chastised for drawing his gun at a routine traffic-stop.
Carrying weapons (Score:2)
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Violent criminal gangs (Score:2)
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You mean like Meal Team 6, and other self-proclaimed "militias"?
Why would a church need this? (Score:2)
Great advertising strategy there, guys. Keep it up!
There's already a startup in this space: ZeroEyes (Score:2)