Be careful if you’re in China and thinking about jaywalking. Thanks to new, cutting-edge technology, the crosswalks in the southeastern city of Shenzhen are monitored by artificial intelligence-powered billboards.
If you decide to cross before you should, “…a CCTV camera will scan your face and flash it up on the huge screens for all to see,” 1and there are plans to instantly send out fines via SMS!
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The move is part of a bigger surveillance push in China to track local citizens and to cut down on jaywalking, which has long been an issue in China. (Yikes, can you imagine this happening here?) And the billboards have been busy; “in the 10 months to February this year, a whopping 13,930 jaywalkers had their mugs displayed on the screen at one busy crossing.”2
Intellifusion, the company behind the AI-powered billboards, plans to work with WeChat (who currently have over 1 billion users), China’s incredible, all-encompassing messaging app and Sina Weibo, the country’s version of Twitter.
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The billboards are powered by a network of 170 million CCTV cameras, which are already being used to regulate traffic and pinpoint drivers who break the rules. And there are plans to install around 400 million more security cams in the next three years.
Look out! Big brother is alive and well in China!
