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.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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