Computers Outperform Humans at Recognizing Faces

seven of five writes "According to the recent Face Recognition Grand Challenge, The match up of face-recognition algorithms showed that machine recognition of human individuals has improved tenfold since 2002 and a hundredfold since 1995. 'Among other advantages, 3-D facial recognition identifies individuals by exploiting distinctive features of a human face's surface--for instance, the curves of the eye sockets, nose, and chin, which are where tissue and bone are most apparent and which don't change over time. Furthermore, Phillips says, "changes in illumination have adversely affected face-recognition performance from still images. But the shape of a face isn't affected by changes in illumination." Hence, 3-D face recognition might even be used in near-dark conditions.'"

security possibilities

[benburned]

once the technology becomes more refined, they could put a camera connected to a computer(stored with all the mugshots in the nation) near a bank or other commonly visited area be able to catch tons of criminals

Face the Consequences

[Doc Ruby]

When a human makes a mistake recognizing a face, they suffer the results. If that's identifying a criminal, they can be cross-examined, or even sued or jailed, depending on what they said that face did.

When computers mis-ID a face, do we cross-examine and maybe punish its programmers?

Ageing?

[644bd346996]

How good are computers at recognizing a face after ten or twenty years? I doubt the algorithms can recognize, say, a teenager based on photos taken prior to puberty. Also, can they maintain accuracy even if somebody has a new scar or puts on dark sunglasses? How much of a face does it take to make a match?

Re:Great, now commercialize it..

[Original Replica]

It is being turned into product. Has you flown into the US from overseas recently? They have (and use) fingerprint scanners, cameras and facial recognition software running in US Customs. Sure right now only people with foreign passport have to scan in and back out when they go through customs, but the cameras are right in your face in the US passport lines as well. This may be very new, I first saw them this last Monday in JFK. But apparently this has been going on for awhile.

ORLY?

[DragonWriter]

for instance, the curves of the eye sockets, nose, and chin, which are where tissue and bone are most apparent and which don't change over time.

so, apparently, plastic surgery doesn't exist.

I'm lucky

[Tribbin]

It's a question of time 'till there 's a law that forbids to wear anything that partially covers your face in certain public areas.

I think I have about ten years 'till computers are able to interpret my front-head as a 'face' so I'm safe.

Quite impressive..

[denoir]

This is actually a great milestone as we humans are really excellent at face recognition. In fact, we are so good at it that we produce tons of false positives and recognize faces where there are none (clouds, toasts etc).

A few years back (well, nearly a decade actually), I did my master's thesis in a lab that among other things did work on face recognition. The experts there assured me that perhaps in 50 years or so computers might be able to approach human face recognition capabilities. Apparently the development was far quicker than they could have imagined.

An interesting technical point is that in fact the algorithms haven't changed a lot since then - it's still mainly various adaptive systems such as neural networks [wikipedia.org] and support vector machines [wikipedia.org]. The really big breakthrough is in the data collection - in the sensors and scanners. What they couldn't imagine a decade ago was the type of accurate automatic 3d face modeling and measurements that can be done today. It's also how certain computing methods that were deemed unsuitable a few years ago are coming back big time (neural nets for instance). I guess the time wasn't ready for them the last time due to computing power and memory limitations (and of course sensors as in this case).

Re:Great, now commercialize it..

[risk one]

Trust me, this will become product. Walking through downtown London, you will get recognized. They already have your passport photo.

I hope I've been able to put your mind at ease.

Re:Face the Consequences

[risk one]

Programmer: We've finished your face recognition system. We estimate its error to be about 0.5 percent.
Politician: Can the technobabble, nerd. Roll it out. We need to catch us some t'rists.
Leftist Media: "Middle-Eastern man unfairly jailed, tortured"
Politician: Sue the programmers! Damn geeks. Technology is evil!

Re:Great, now commercialize it..

[Old Benjamin]

...Invasive. The privacy people are almost never right. This time, they've never been wronger. I don't quite subscribe to the definition of invasive as a picture.

Will somebody please explain to me why every time some new way to do anything that would involve identifying people, it's an invasion of privacy? I mean honestly, why are you so afraid? What crime did you commit now?

Automating Go

[handy_vandal]

Go is not yet as well-automated as chess, but it appears that go-playing software is rapidly advancing:

"Two Hungarian scientists have now come up with an algorithm that helps computers pick the right move in Go, played by millions around the world, in which players must capture spaces by placing black and white marbles on a board in turn.

"On a nine by nine board we are not far from reaching the level of a professional Go player," said Levente Kocsis at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' computing lab SZTAKI.

The 19 by 19 board which top players use is still hard for a machine, but the new method is promising because it makes better use of the growing power of computers than earlier Go software."

Link [reuters.com]

See also:

http://zaphod.aml.sztaki.hu/papers/ecml06.pdf [sztaki.hu]

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/vanderwerf03solving.ht ml [psu.edu]

http://www.primidi.com/2007/02/26.html [primidi.com]

-kgj

Caricatures

[Philotic]

I'll be impressed when they can recognize caricatures as well as humans.

Other Race Effect

[fishbowl]

One of the academic research areas I've been involved in, is study of the so-called "Other Race Effect". There is some evidence that people have quantifiable error when asked to identify faces of people of other races than their own.

Computers won't be subject to this.

Re:ORLY?

[maxume]

My impression is that chin and cheek bone implants are pretty common. Not quite up there with nose jobs, but common none the less. To me, it seems like you can kind of tell, lots of people on tv have faces that don't quite look like they were born with them.

Re:Since you asked, you can have it...

[Spacezilla]

I'm Danish and for a couple of years we've had a law here to prevent people from wearing masks while demonstrating, because it makes it hard for the police to pick out who threw something at them if things turn violent.

You're still welcome to wear a mask anywhere you want (well, perhaps except in banks) :), but if you attend a demonstration while wearing a mask, you can be arrested.