What is this? Is there a link missing? - Aaron deMello

Aaron -- that's me thinking out loud, just letting my mind flow. :) Sorry if these snippets sometimes seem confusing. I've been experimenting with using Friendfeed as a notebook, with mixed results. - Sean McBride

What I am doing here is thinking about that image, meditating on it, exploring its implications in my head, planting a seed. I actually think this technology will be available in the relatively near term. And it seems to be part of something much bigger which is still inchoate but gradually taking shape and coming into view. - Sean McBride

One thing to be aware of - biometrics are affected by things like pregnancy, medications one is on, etc.. Technology will get better, but sometimes how things break is as interesting as how they work properly. - Flitcraft

identifying implies pattern recognition..too much of which might solidify patterns into rigid shapes and forms ...resulting in fixed dogmas, stereotypes and prejudices..careful..! - Hayk H.

But think: what happens when you combine biometric systems with social network analysis? Knowing that a particular set of people are in a particular place at a particular time in a particular set of relations greatly narrows down the pool of candidates for biometric recognition. All of these emerging pattern recognition technologies are synergistic with one another; they amplify one another. - Sean McBride

ok, in the context given by you. But still, any attempt at defining patterns or rules of recognition is prone to oversimplification, generalization and systematization, all of which are anything but close to reality when it comes to matters of human behavior, social relationships and workings of mind. - Hayk H.

Hayk - these systems are getting good enough for government work (to coin a phrase). And they will only get much better. - Sean McBride

Sean, this area is my specialty. Are you familiar with the Golden Shield in China? They are doing some amazing things at a breathtaking scale in the name of surveillance. - Aaron deMello

Aaron - I know quite about it now after just scanning several articles. Thanks much for the pointer. The main political and social question as always: who will watch the watchers? In the meantime, the technology issues are fascinating. - Sean McBride

In China, that's not an issue for them... ;-) Here in the west its a huge issue for us and one that hampers us (perhaps rightfully so) as the socio-political issues take precedence to the technical ones. The Brits have done a good job of balancing the issues plus they have probably more experience than we do here in North America. I live in Canada and the govt. has very little legal right to deploy technologies such as these. - Aaron deMello

Aaron - what facet of this technology are you most focused on, if I may ask? (I'll understand if you'd rather not say.) - Sean McBride

Add me on LinkedIn or FB and I'll shoot you an email. - Aaron deMello

As soon as I set up an account at either site, I'll do that. - Sean McBride

Sure thing - I'm surprised that you're not on either since you're so active on here. - Aaron deMello

The number of faces, voices and gaits that any individual mind can remember and recognize is, of course, quite limited -- certainly not every face, voice and gait in the world. - Sean McBride

Good point Greg and Sean. Some of the most interesting research in this area comes from people who study the cognitive degradation of people with mental illnesses like Alzheimers... its pretty fascinating how the instant quick recognition that happens for healthy folks is contrasted with the abilities of those who are ill. Sean - maybe not every face, voice, or gait in THE world but certainly every face and voice in YOUR world. How often do you hear a voice and think... I know that person! - Aaron deMello

Aaron - I've thought quite a bit about voice recognition because I have an odd ability to recognize instantly most voices I've heard only a few times, including voices on television and radio, and including very obscure personalities. I tend to see each voice in my mind as a completely unique visual landscape -- there is no confusing any voice with any other voice. The same with songs: I can usually identify most songs I've ever heard from only a tiny snippet -- sometimes even less than a second. The core genetic code for any sonic entity almost seems to reside in every part of the entity. It should be possible to replicate and greatly surpass this kind of pattern recognition with machine intelligence. - Sean McBride

Absolutely. Technology has already advanced to a point where we can do it extremely reliably for music. Voice may be more tricky, but as all communications begin to pass over IP, building a training set for machine learning becomes more and more feasible. - Aaron deMello

Hayk - pattern recognition needn't imply simplistic stereotypes. The greatest and most nuanced minds in world history (like Shakespeare) employed pattern recognition processes to parse the world. - Sean McBride

Gregory - did you see Wall-E? The animated characters -- especially the lead character -- conveyed complex emotional and mental states with minimal visual detail. What's happening here, I think, is that small and simple segments of patterns are triggering the memory of much larger and more complex patterns in one's mind. A few details quickly map to fully developed templates and archetypes. Advanced machine intelligence will be able to recognize any whole from any part. - Sean McBride

V - can you expand a bit? I don't know the reference. - Sean McBride

There's this thing called Google -- I just used it. :) The Amazon reviews heap high praise on this book. - Sean McBride

Again: a few visual details are triggering an enormous complex of wired neurons for various emotional and mental states. The few details are an index into something much larger. - Sean McBride