“Beautiful. Unethical. Dangerous.” AI turns Wi-Fi router into a camera like The Dark Knight’s high-frequency generator

I watched The Dark Knight over the Easter weekend. So when I came across an Instagram post from O23 EcoTech, detailing how an AI turned a Wi-Fi router into a camera, my eyebrows raised.

I couldn't help but draw comparisons to the supercomputer that Lucius Fox uses to pinpoint The Joker's whereabouts in Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed second Batman movie. And judging by the comments, I'm not the only one.

In The Dark Knight, it's explained that the WayneTech device turns every cellphone in Gotham City into a high-frequency generator – used to map out the city on multiple screens, much like sonar.

And in an eerily similar instance, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University trained an AI to map out humans using only radio signals from a Wi-Fi router. This news actually broke at the beginning of 2023, so it's not even new tech!

The Instagram post (above) includes footage from a talk, explaining that a conventional camera was initially used to train the AI alongside the radio signals from the Wi-Fi router, before being removed, so the AI could then only use the radio signals.

As the speaker in the talk states: "So suddenly AI has turned every Wi-Fi router into a camera that can work in the dark, specially tuned for tracking living beings."

An article from the Independent shed a little light on the researchers' well-intentioned uses for the technology, with the outlet stating: "The team claims the device offers a cheap and 'privacy-friendly' alternative to cameras and Lidars, as it does not provide a clear image of the subject."

And while I've no doubt that the researchers' suggestion that the technology could be used to monitor elderly people is a positive application, this, like artificial intelligence in general, is another example of a technological advancement that has the capacity to be used for good but could also be exploited.

Circling back around to The Dark Knight, Lucius calls Batman's creation, "Beautiful. Unethical. Dangerous." He agrees to help Bruce Wayne only once, before destroying the machine and tendering his resignation as company CEO.

So, what do you think of this technology? An exciting force for good? Or, in the words of Lucius Fox: "too much power for one person"?

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