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Somewhere in June the demonstrations in Hong Kong started, which are already called the largest demonstrations in the history of the city. Every day more and more demonstrators join the protest, which unfortunately don’t always end well (le Clercq, 2019). The main cause for these protests is the proposition of a new law for extradition, which makes it possible to extradite suspects to countries that Hong Kong does not have an extradition agreement with. However, it seems that technology has given the demonstrators more motivation to keep protesting.

Hong Kong is known for its electronic malls and is blanketed with high-speed internet. So when the protests began, it was more than natural that many people went online to look for information and guidance. However, this also makes it possible for demonstrators and journalists to live-stream everything from massive marches to interferences by the police. These live-streams can be played by every inhabitant of Hong Kong and help creating a sense of solidarity and belonging. Even demonstrators can watch the live-streams while marching along with the people that are filming, so they can see what is happening fifty yards ahead (Haas, 2019).

It is not the first time that technology has played an important role in protest movements. Social media and online messaging have been influential in the information war against Qaddafi in 2011 and the Arab Spring protests that spread around the Middle East and North Africa in the early 2010s (Pollock, 2012)(Tufekci, 2018). However, Hong Kong has developed some new tools of its own, too.

Maps are published during demonstrations, which are continuously updated, showing with color codes the location of the police, ‘thugs’, demonstrators, first aid points and supply stations. The information is put together by a person that is on the ground, drawing on an iPad and sending it to and integrator. He or she then compares this information with live-streams, puts it together and then sends it over Telegram or Apple’s Airdrop. However, it goes even further than this. Demonstrators are doing everything to remain unrecognizable. They are only using secure digital messaging apps (such as Telegram), taking no selfies, buying single-ride subway tickets, changing their name and SIM-card and wearing face masks because they fear that facial-recognition software is used (Haas, 2019)(Mahtani, 2019).

Different claims have risen from the demonstrators. ‘This moment is the last change for Hong Kong, or the next generation won’t even know what privacy is’. ‘We have created whole new ways of resisting’. ‘China is good in monitoring their people, I’m afraid that will happen to Hong Kong too’. In my opinion, these statements don’t contain the political and economic nature that was the reason for protesting in the first place. Is it still about achieving these goals, or simply about outsmarting the government? What do you think?

 

References:

Haas, B. (2019). The new battle in Hong Kong isn’t on the streets; it’s in the apps. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614286/the-new-battle-in-hong-kong-isnt-on-the-streets-its-in-the-apps/

Mahtani, S. (2019). Masks, cash and apps: How Hong Kong’s protesters find ways to outwit the surveillance state. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/masks-cash-and-apps-how-hong-kongs-protesters-find-ways-to-outwit-the-surveillance-state/2019/06/15/8229169c-8ea0-11e9-b6f4-033356502dce_story.html?noredirect=on

Le Clercq, P. (2019). Grote onrust in Hong Kong, wat speelt er eigenlijk? Retrieved from https://www.rtlz.nl/beurs/artikel/4812416/onrust-hongkong-china-2047-1997-uitleveringsverdrag-economie-beurs

Pollock, J. (2012). People Power 2.0. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/427640/people-power-20/?set=500346&set=500346

Tufekci, Z. (2018). How social media took us from Tahrir Square to Donald Trump. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611806/how-social-media-took-us-from-tahrir-square-to-donald-trump/

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Do you need help finding Waldo? Since 4.45 seconds is all it takes for Redpepper’s robot to find him, it has been given the appropriate name ‘There’s Waldo’. What used to be a challenging game for children has now also become a subject to Artificial Intelligence.

The little metal robotic arm is equipped with a Vision Camera Kit that allows for facial recognition. After the camera has taken a photo of the page, Open CV is used to find possible Waldo faces. These faces are then sent to the Google’s AutoML Vision service, and if the robot determines a match with a confidence level of 95% or higher it will point to all the Waldo’s it can find on that page.

However, the remarkable thing is that the creative technologist at Redpepper who oversaw the project is not that trained in coding at all. Google’s AutoML Vision is designed to let users train their own AI tool without having to write a single line of code. For now this service is limited to image recognition, where users can upload a set of images, sit back and let the machine do the work.

There’s Waldo was created to show in a simple way what machine vision can do and to show the customers of Redpepper the services that the company offers. But the same technology could be used in many other cases, like identifying how many pairs of Adidas shoes or Tommy Hilfiger sweaters are being worn at the mall or counting how many people drinking a beer are seen in a photo from a festival. Many people find these ‘tricks’ amusing, others take it more seriously. Some critics take it a little step further, claiming There’s Waldo shows (in a much simpler version though) how systems like Facebook and government surveillance facial recognition software can spot people in a crowd. However, that would be a lot easier for them if you wear the same red-striped shirt every day.

 

References:

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/8/8/17665268/wheres-waldo-finding-robot-google-cloud-automl-ai

https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2018/08/10/ai-powered-robot-can-spot-waldo-in-4-5-seconds/

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/17/16901126/google-cloud-ai-services-automl

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjk7gy/robot-uses-computer-vision-to-find-waldo-redpepper?utm_source=mbtwitter

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/viral-video-of-bot-built-with-google-ai-tools-finding-wheres-waldo.html