Tim Worstall

Modern Britain.

Ever mindful of our ancient freedoms and liberties, Westminster Council now intends to start monitoing what we say on the streets, along with the more usual CCTV coverage.

Steve Harrison, its assistant director of community protection, said
the microphones would first be tested in Soho. The devices would be
programmed to trigger an automatic alert if noise levels get too high.
"By the time someone rings us up to tell us about a noise problem and
we have decided whether to visit, that event could be lost to us," he
said.

Just how sensitive will  the microphones be?  Good enough to pick up every "Looking for some company"? 

In

2 responses

  1. David Wildgoose Avatar
    David Wildgoose

    I play the game of “Go” every Sunday evening in an informal club. Interestingly, most of our players work in IT, and 2 of them are post-grad PhD students in
    the AI lab at Sheffield University, both researching computer linguistics.
    I have similar interests myself, and let’s just say that I am
    reasonably au fait with the current state of the art with computer speech recognition and also with the prevailing trends.
    The microphones are a nuisance now.
    The future however is a very different place.
    They won’t want to pay people to listen to every microphone, but that won’t be necessary.
    Nor will it be a problem to track
    a person and what they are saying as they walk down the street.
    Not now.
    But soon.
    Do we really want to be building the foundations for such possibilities?

    Reply
  2. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    In Harare International Airport they have microphones dangling from the ceiling. But no cameras.
    This certainly is NOT the direction Britain wants to be heading.

    Reply

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