If you have your Orwellian bingo cards handy, you can add "criminalizing feelings" to the game.
Chinese police are reportedly using new surveillance software that lets them scan a person's emotional state to infer criminal guilt and provide justification for search and seizure.
China isn't just using this technology, their state-controlled news is boasting about it.
Breitbart reports that the communist-run Global Times had this to say about A.I. software being used to predict prisoner's emotional states and potential future actions:
"The technology helps prison officers to evaluate whether a prisoner presents potential risks, including possible mental problems and violent or suicidal tendencies, and estimate whether he or she is likely to repeat an offense after release."
I'm pretty sure there was a Tom Cruise movie about this (Minority Report):
Here's how the tech works according to China's propaganda outlet:
"After a prisoner looks at the camera for three to four seconds, this recognition system can know his or her seven main physiological indexes including body temperature, eye movement, and heart rate, and convert them into psychological signs showing whether the prisoner is calm, depressed, angry or whatever else at that time."
The tech can also be used on the road, where cameras look at the face of every driver for "abnormal" emotional states. Police can then respond to people they deem suspicious. If the system determines someone is acting more nervous or stressed than usual, the police can use the tech to authorize a search of their vehicle or property.
Oh, and it works through personal health devices that can monitor your heart-rate, blood pressure, and temperature.
How many of you are wearing a smartwatch right now, eh?
In addition, the Chinese paper said that the technology would be used by employers during interviews and by gaming companies to assess people's faces while in VR – most likely the first step in assuring we all feel comfortable in the Matrix when it goes online!
Translation: We are moving toward a future where one must be calm and fake happy at all times lest we be arrested for thoughtcrimes.
Remember to smile!
