Featured Image Credit: Redspeed International
Topics: UK News, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Cars
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: UK News, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Cars
The world’s first artificial intelligence speed camera has just been launched in UK and has already been branded 'a step too far'.
The controversial camera in question has just been installed and its highly-advanced technology is able watch drivers from inside their own vehicles.
This means that motorists can now be caught for a whole array of road-based crimes including riding without wearing a seatbelt, using mobile phones or whether there are too many people crammed inside one car at a time.
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The new AI unit is able to see drivers inside their cars by using super high-spec '4D' radar and super-resolution cameras.
Not just used to hand out fines for drivers disobeying the law, whether that's running a red light or cranking up the speed a little too high, the Redspeed Sentio camera goes one step further.
It can also be linked to DVLA and police databases to check any given driver's tax disc and insurance then and there.
The camera is able to monitor up to six lanes of traffic and can even work alongside other units to check for averaged speeds across the board.
Fuelled by solar power, the cameras are able to surveil the streets throughout the day as well as overnight.
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While the new AI gadgets could potentially revolutionise the roads with the surveillance technology, it's clear that not everybody is on board with the first of its kind addition to the motorways of the UK.
Critics have slammed the Redspeed Sentio cameras for invading drivers' privacy, dubbing the gizmos as 'Big Brother’s cash machine'.
Brian Gregory, from the Alliance of British Drivers, said: "It’s clear that the hollow assurances the motoring public was given about speed cameras being used exclusively to prevent accidents was always a total sham.
"The objective is actually to maximise their revenue-generating potential."
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The first of the highly-divisive cameras was installed on the extremely busy A23 in Lambeth, South London, which runs between the capital city and Brighton, East Sussex.
It was installed as part of a wider Transport for London (TfL) trial before the Home Office can give it the green light - pardon the pun.
Camera developers at Redspeed International, explain on their website: "Redspeed Sentio is designed to be whatever camera you want it to be.
"In combining several key enforcement applications and having AI at its heart, Redspeed Sentio has the built-in modular flexibility, capability and scalability to meet virtually any future challenge."
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And this seems to be exactly where the concern lies for critics of the cameras who argue that the devices could lead to far more bad than good.
Nick Freeman, a lawyer who specialises in motoring offences, claimed: "As drivers we are all becoming sitting ducks. This could just be a step too far.
"It could help alleviate the lack of police on our roads. But we will always be missing something when we don’t have that human element."
And the backlash doesn't stop there with many equating the new cameras to a dystopian-style nightmare.
"This kind of intrusive and creepy surveillance which treats every passer-by as a potential suspect is excessive and normalising," declared Jake Hurfurt, head of Big Brother Watch.
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He continued: "It poses a threat to everyone’s privacy.
"People should be free to go about their lives without being analysed by faceless AI systems."
Where do you stand on it?