China Daily Global Edition (USA)
AI to the rescue of kidnapped children
XIAO HAOZI (name changed) was kidnapped by human traffickers 10 years ago when he was just 3 years old. Although Sichuan provincial police had only a few childhood photographs of Xiao as clues, they managed to find him by using artificial intelligence (AI) technology. China Daily reporter Zhang Zhouxiang explains the technology that made this miracle possible:
Can you recognize a child based on nothing but its photos taken 10 years ago? Probably not, because we humans recognize a person’s face based on certain physical features — the shapes of the cheeks and mouth, the size of the eyes — which change with time.
Besides, human memory is not stored in hard disks like those of computers — intact and ready to use. That is precisely why AI technology can play a significant role in recognizing human faces from old photographs.
AI technology not only analyzes the shapes of the cheeks and mouth and the size of the eyes, but also reads some features that change little with time, such as the lines on the lips and the shape of the irises. Since AI can read these features, which are like fingerprints — more easily, it can more accurately recognize a child from its 10-year-old photo.
AI technology has been progressing well thanks to the efforts of scientists engaged in improving the algorithms of artificial neuronal networks, which improve themselves by “learning” from past activities. The more comparisons they make between photos and actual human faces, the more adept they become at matching faces. The AI technology used to identify people from their old photographs is more mature than we think. On a China Central Television program last year, an AI program scanned the photos of 30 couples from the 1990s and accurately matched them one by one with their young children sitting on the stage.
News reports say AI technology has already helped Fujian provincial police to find 1,091 lost children. Let us hope the technology can help police find more lost and kidnapped children, and to prevent such tragedies.
The report, which covers a range of China’s efforts to modernize its military, paints Beijing as a growing threat to not only the Asia-Pacific region but also the Arctic region and beyond. More importantly, it makes no secret of the US’ intention to act if Taiwan faces a threat from Beijing.
Like most of the US’ so-called studies and analyses on other countries, the report pieces together carefully selected “evidence” from various sources to serve Washington’s interests. No wonder the report highlights the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy, whose main aim is to contain China and other countries that are not US allies.
The US is reportedly planning to unveil a new version of its Indo-Pacific strategy in Singapore later this month, which will be conveniently buttressed by the report. By depicting China as a potential security threat, the US aims to compel other countries in the region to support its strategy.
But in its blind pursuit of hegemony the US has ignored the intensive economic, trade and people-to-people exchanges between China and other countries in the region, including US allies, which have helped lay a solid foundation for one of the world’s largest free trade areas, and fueled some of the most robust economies.
The Indo-Pacific region, which is home to more than half of the world’s population and contributes to nearly half of global economic growth, has been largely peaceful and stable for decades thanks partly to China’s economic and foreign policies.
As such, the US should not expect its allies to sacrifice their economic development to counter a non-existent threat.
By hyping up the threat posed by China’s military, Pentagon can ask the US administration to increase its military budget — which at $716 billion this year is equal to the cumulative defense budget of other nine countries in the top 10 list. The report therefore is the US’ latest excuse to further boost its military budget.