Smile recognition technology
Canon Smile Recognition. © Canon Information Technologies.
Unexpected applications for artificial intelligence keep cropping up. Canon Information Technology (CIT), a division of Canon based in China, developed a facial recognition camera technology that controls access to corporate offices, augmenting it with a smile recognition function. A Financial Times report on the working conditions of tech workers in China says that CIT deployed this system at its Beijing headquarters to allow only smiling employees to enter offices, reserve conference rooms or even use copiers and printers. Canon China justifies this technology by pointing out that it is designed to promote a positive atmosphere at work. “Mostly, people are just too shy to smile, but once they get used to smiles in the office, they just keep their smiles without the system which created a positive and lively atmosphere,” the spokesperson added. In an announcement last October, Canon said it is marketing these tools to companies ranging from restaurants to hospitals to banks, in the hope of bringing “joy and health to everyone in the post-epidemic era.” Not everyone shares this enthusiasm. “So now the companies are not only manipulating our time, but also our emotions,” wrote one Weibo user who clearly woke up in a bad mood.
⇨ The Verge, James Vincent, “Canon put AI cameras in its Chinese offices that only let smiling workers inside.”
2021-06-17
