//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// t cht lk
beat humans. A well-trained AI can take
this to an even higher level of data and
image analysis. This functionality can be of
practical use in many applications.
Safety and security – An AI system can,
if properly set up and configured, quickly
correlate events detected in several hours
of video material from several sources. A
surveillance system using AI can trigger
a direct alarm, where a potential burglar
can be ‘told off’ before the crime has even
been committed.
Business optimisation and smart cities
– Surveillance systems with AI can detect
unusual behaviour patterns and use the data
to optimise operational efficiency in retail
environments or even allow for a controlled
flow of traffic and quick responses to
incident reports on a highway.
www.intelligentcio.com
AI in surveillance: Challenges
It’s easy to get carried away by the
potential of AI in a range of applications,
such as improvement of configuration,
system optimisation, site design, image
configuration and device management.
However, there are still fundamental
challenges that need to be solved.
Human experience beats AI – An AI
application can successfully detect a
‘running person’ but, unlike humans who can
put the data into context, it cannot know
why that person is running – to catch the bus
or because he has just robbed the bank.
Quality of the data – Without ‘raw
material’ in terms of high-quality footage
and video, an AI system has nothing to
analyse. If the cameras can’t handle
challenging light or if the angles are wrong,
it could jump to the wrong conclusions.
Compute-intensive technology – Memory,
processing power, and power consumption
are the biggest challenges within AI,
especially for deep learning applications.
Today’s systems require vast amounts of
space to store data for learning, either in the
cloud or on a server with multiple GPUs.
Conclusion
AI systems have major potential within the
field of surveillance, but we are far from
having developed human-level intelligence,
or ‘true’ AI. It will take some time before we
see self-learning surveillance systems that
can make accurate assumptions in general
scenarios without risking too many false
alarms or the violation of people’s integrity. n
INTELLIGENTCIO
69