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The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

driesdepoorter.be

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Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#61

Post by somebodynew »

Cyberdog wrote: post #52
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #50

I realised what they were doing on the second photo/video. OMG that's the most terrifying thing I have seen in ages. Amazing, innovative, tipping-point-sign, but still, terrifying

I was scared at first too until I realized we're talking about people already taking photos for the purpose of posting to Instagram anyway. It's involuntary surveillance while participating in voluntary surveillance.

It's only following people who posted their own photos voluntarily in this particular implementation, but consider the next incremental step for this same approach: a website where you upload a photo of anyone's face and get a map/trail of every public photo/video posted by someone else where that face appears in the background for the last month. Now you're not just finding the subject of a voluntarily portrait in security camera footage from a public place, but finding anywhere that any private person has gone in any populated area where anyone else is taking photos for social media.

How many involuntary social media photo and video backgrounds do you think someone living in NYC or SF is identifiable in every day? I would venture to guess, enough to track a lot of their life. The only thing I see stopping anyone from making this site today is the challenges in scraping large quantities of public data from social media sites. Once you have the data, the rest seems like a solved problem.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#62

Post by MauranKilom »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #50

I realised what they were doing on the second photo/video. OMG that's the most terrifying thing I have seen in ages. Amazing, innovative, tipping-point-sign, but still, terrifying

They certainly seem to have a hand for... uncanny projects.

Like a clock that shows you what percentage of your life is over.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#64

Post by naillo »

dicknuckle wrote: post #53
naillo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are really creepy. It becomes more creepy when you go from a recorded video that no one really watches to one systematically analyzed with AI though.

That's how a lot of license plate reader features for surveillance cameras already work.

It's more creepy when it's human beings you're analyzing than non humans.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#65

Post by altacc »

sangnoir wrote: post #57
matt-attack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something about it that's so undignified, and cringe inducing to me. To see someone pose, repose, inspect, repose, etc. I just could never want to put that much effort into how I'm appearing. The faux spontaneity is just so off-putting.

Seeing how the sausage is made almost always results in disillusionment regardless of the industry. Some of the magic was taken away when I learned that certain scenes a movie I liked required dozens of takes: it felt too mechanical/industrial and went against my romantic notions of how art is made. This is not far off from the pose-repose-inspect cycle you noted, but has a much larger supporting crew (and budget) an…

Most art is the result of numerous trial & error. Most finished works of creativity/art, be it visual, music, poetry or prose, are preceded by numerous sketches, drafts, discarded attempts and edits. Creativity is a process and requires work. I think this is important to know as so many people think that they aren't artistic or creative as they can't immediately create something wonderful. But those that can seem to create spontaneous art have practiced a lot to develop that skill. It is possible to practice creativity in order to develop more.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#66

Post by bmicraft »

spoonjim wrote: post #54

Can someone explain to a novice how “AI” is used here? Is the person in the IG image being correlated to a security camera time stamp with face recognition or similar?

The instagram photos are most likely not posted exactly when they were shot but some time after. Also, even if they post a rough location there is no guarantee that they would show up on any particular cam. I'd image the ai has to go through a very large amount pictures and cam footage to find one where the influencer shows up on a cam some time before it was posted.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#67

Post by JohnFen »

bosswipe wrote: post #51
JohnFen wrote: post #48

Man, that is creepy as hell. Perhaps it can be useful to really bring home to people how they're being spied on every day.

Why is it creepy? The influencers already publicly posted their location and photo.

It's not about the influencers. It's about the rest of us, and how pretty much anybody can do this sort of thing with anyone for any other purpose.

It's just another piece of evidence that we really are living in dystopian times.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#68

Post by thih9 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #50

I realised what they were doing on the second photo/video. OMG that's the most terrifying thing I have seen in ages. Amazing, innovative, tipping-point-sign, but still, terrifying

You might enjoy "the green leopard plague" [1], it's a sci fi novella and (mild spoilers ahead, pause reading if you want to avoid them) it describes a future where image processing like this is a bit more common and accessible.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Leopard_Plague

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#69

Post by JohnFen »

MisterTea wrote: post #32

This is why I have no social media accounts. No one knows what I am up to. No one knows where I have been. No one can find me. Do not track is now a lift style.

Do you use a credit/debit card? Do you pay utility bills, rent or a mortgage? Do you carry a cell phone? Do you drive a car? If you said yes to any of these (and many more!) then you are not invisible at all.

Re: The Follower: Using open cameras and AI to find how an Instagram photo is taken

#70

Post by willxinc »

The concept and visualization reminds me a lot of similar technology in the TV show Person of Interest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_serie...

It's quite interesting to think about how relevant the themes being discussed in that show are ever present today.

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