The NYPD is reportedly considering AI technology that would enable cameras to notify law enforcement when a gun is drawn on the city’s subways.
Gun-detection Artificial Intelligence aims to inform police “before that first shot is fired,” according to Sam Alaimo, one of the co-founders of ZeroEyes, a company that deploys the software in public spaces around the country.
The Philadelphia-based firm is training an algorithm to identify weapons once they are drawn. The program integrates with the current digital cameras used by transport systems, government organizations, and educational institutions, among others. According to corporate officials, analysts keep an eye on blank screens that don’t activate until firearms are found – notifying law enforcement immediately if they think the object is a weapon.
“From the moment that gun is seen in front of a security camera within about three to five seconds, the end user, the school, subway, the military base, the shopping mall, the grocery store, will get that alert,” Alaimo said, as reported by the New York Post. Officers will also get “a picture of the shooter, the exact location of the shooter and the exact time the shooter was there.”
In the wake of the shooting on an A train in Brooklyn last week, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry told NY1 that the tech might be one way to stop weapons. “I’m looking at technology where we can use our current cameras in the actual subway system and integrate that with technology where we can detect weapons,” Daughtry said.
However, researchers studying the city’s subway have found “very few occasions in which you can actually get a visual on a singular entity exempted from sleepy stations during sleepy hours,” according to Santa Clara University’s Noah McClain.
“There may be cameras in that type of setting that can identify something that appears to be a handgun, but there will be a significant amount of false positives and false negatives,” he stated.
