Trinidad’s Tribe band launches facial-recognition AI system for Carnival
(Trinidad Guardian) For many revellers seeing photos of themselves on the road is a big part of the mas experience and a new digital feature from Tribe promises to increase the ease with how their photos are shared.
The veteran Carnival brand has partnered with local art and photography gallery NativeMirror, to launch the CarnivalCamera, a digital platform using artificial intelligence (AI) that would allow photos of masqueraders to be sent directly to their social media accounts.
Speaking with Guardian Media Tribe CEO said the feature uses facial recognition technology of registered masqueraders and sends the photos to that specific users’ account.
The feature, Tribe anticipates will increase the ease with which masqueraders find photos of themselves in costume, eliminating the hassle of exchanging contact information with photographers on the road to get their shots.
“No longer does the masquerader have to sift through thousands of photos on a website to find themselves… the pictures find you! “CarnivalCamera leverages technology to eliminate the hassle of photo hunting.”
“In addition to tagging pictures via facial recognition, similar to Facebook and Instagram, the system also incorporates large scale A.I. editing of images for quality enhancements and rapid turnaround delivery, ” Ackin said.
Speaking with Guardian Media on Wednesday Derek Drayton founder and CEO of Native Mirror says the CarnivalCamera system is the first time large-scale editing was being rolled out.
“It’s definitely an exciting time because these systems to the best of my knowledge have not been used elsewhere for any other Carnival. “We have been testing the system's capabilities because as you know we are using facial recognition and Carnival is a time when people wear costumes, they wear a lot of make-up but it is working.”
The system he says begins with simply registering with the band followed by submitting a selfie to allow for the system to have recognition.
Drayton said the system is supported by a team of over 40 photographers on the road for both Carnival Monday and Tuesday who capture each step of the parade routes, allowing for candid, full documentation of the entire masquerading experience. As concerns over data mining and users’ privacy remain a major concern worldwide, Drayton says masqueraders can frolic at ease as the company does not sell images or data to other external agencies.
In terms of another aspect of privacy, Drayton says the CarnivalCamera system allows users full control over which of their photos are published as part of the band’s public gallery.
He noted that while photos will be sent to masqueraders via their private gallery, some images may also be used in the website’s public gallery, but can be removed quickly.
“It really puts control in the hands of the client by having them report a photo they don’t like or don’t want published immediately and having it removed in quick time.
“It’s not a lengthy process and we have briefed and trained our photographers over what kind of images we want to capture to show the best of the masqueraders.”