Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, and growing up on a steady diet of science fiction movies, fears about The Terminator and Skynet (the evil computer overlord that sent Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character into the past in the movie) were kind of a constant in the background. That and the lingering threat of nuclear war since the U.S.S.R. was still in existence at that time.
As I got older, computer control of our everyday lives via Skynet became less of a fear, but advances over the last several years may have vindicated the writers of the Terminator movies after all.
Or it could simply be my brain going back to watching the first of those movies as a kid.
Regardless, a new school safety device uses artificial intelligence and wifi, of all things, to detect weapons to try to keep kids safe. Michael Clements gives us details:
According to the company, Wi-AI uses “spatial intelligence” to find weapons such as guns before they enter a school.
The AI system analyzes a space and detects where potential weapons are located by interpreting “how Wi-Fi signals reflect off people and objects.”
Once a possible weapon is found, security personnel, school administrators, or others can go to the location to determine whether there is actually a threat.
Some people are concerned about privacy issues with the system (4th Amendment, anyone?), but the company says that it doesn’t have privacy concerns because it doesn’t collect personal biometric data about people.
Personally, that sounds an awful lot like AI surveillance, which is a concern to plenty of people.
And that leads us back to the age old question of whether we should give away some of our privacy rights for safety.
Believe me, I’m all for keeping people safe, especially children. However, I think that the better way to do this is to make criminals scared by getting firearms into schools in the hands of law-abiding and trained personal on school grounds.
Scanning us to prevent weapons on campus? How about making criminals think twice instead?
