Meet Penny, the AI who "knows" how much you earn by looking at your home from space!
In my work at the European Space Agency, I come across many cool new research projects on using satellite images to create new and innovative services. In an earlier post, I shared how satellitess can be used to help predict the GDP growth of a region or country. Today I bring you a quite similar use-case of satellite imagery, however relying on a completely different technique.
Penny, an AI developed by Stamen Design and Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, using satellite Data provided by Digital Globe. Image source
It works rather simply. You enter an address or click somewhere on the map of New York or St. Louis where the app currently works, and Penny tells you how certain she is that the area is a low, low-medium, medium, medium-high, or high-income neighborhood. While the application is still only an early prototype, it gives you an idea of where this is heading.
So how was Penny made?
A lot of data exists on average household income and self-reported well-being in western regions. In the US, surveys are regularly carried out in order to study what variables help improve a city or regions economic status and development. These data, more often than not, are publically available and can be accessed on site such as the US Census Bureau. An American company called Stamen Design, together with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, came up with the clever idea of training an AI to predict these numbers using satellite images of regions.
At the top is a satellite image of Manhatten by DigitalGlobe, the image on the bottom show different zones separated by average income levels. Image source
The AI was fed with images of different American regions together with public data on average household income. Based on this information, it found patterns between the appearances and structures of buildings and infrastructures on one hand and average income levels on the other. For instance, living next to a hospital, railway station, or football field was highly correlated with a low-income neighborhood. Larger houses with big gardens, on the other hand, was a clear sign of high median income. Same with famous landmarks such as living close to the Empire state building. Some samples of images that the AI correlated with low, medium or high income can be seen below.
Sample images of what Penny considers to suggest a low, medium or high average income in a region. Image source
I find this really cool and fascinating on quite a few levels. At first, I was not really that sure whether anyone would really want to use this application, and that it was mostly just a fun little experiment. I guess some might be curious to see what people earn in different parts of the country, but this can be accessed in other ways just as easily. However, what is really cool is the idea that an artificial intelligence is literally looking all around our world, all at once, and "understanding" quite a lot about our lives and the state of our well-being and economic status. Since these images are all processed in the cloud, you can just imagine Penny as this cloud-based intelligence that is examining our lives and trying to figure out what we're up to. I can only begin to fathom what can be done when other secondary datasets are supplemented, or when other applications integrate this type of intelligence.
So what do you think Steemers? Is this cool or frightening? Should there be limits to what type of information we feed to an AI? If so, what? Looking forward to reading your opinions in the comments!
Wow, that's amazing. It's a simple concept that could come in handy especially for travelers. But, like with any technology that uses personal data it also could be abused. Overall though, I believe that this could be a wonderful tool if used in the right way. It could be especially useful for those who are traveling and looking for an airbnb or vacation rental by owner in a new city they've never been to. The traveler could make sure that they're staying in a safer location depending on what Penny tells them about the vacation rental.
Interesting read, thanks for sharing Fredrikaa
Now that's an interesting application of the data that I had not really thought about.
It reminds me of a cool idea I saw presented at a New York Hackathon organized by Tech Crunch earlier. A team presented an idea called Safepath (or something like that) which used Google Maps to suggest the safest path from point A to point B (as opposed to the fastest path which is normally suggested) to help people in a foreign city avoid unpleasant areas on their way home to their hotels. I know they used data such as the amount of street lights, the closing hours of shops and restaurants (busy areas are often safer areas than back-alleys of course). I'm sure they could integrate this data as well :)
A very itneresting topic though!
pretty crazy! I brought u up almost over $21 ! This is crazy that u can calculate income from satellites
see if u dont look rich enough the robot will just wipe you out they only want productive humans around!
hey I upvoted everyone in this comment section as a couple cent reward for commenting on my new discord friend @fredrikaa and @protoken hey guys good seein ya on the discordian chat
anyway im throwin pennies everywhere!
I want some pennies too! Make me a millionaire god dammit!
11 pennies issued good sir! hey its like im my own central bank Heyy!! get a loada me over ere Eyyyy"
, hey i upvoted ur recent blog posts and since they were pretty cool i gave u a follow, since u already have like $500 and its only been June 2017 since u joined and u have 1831 posts and 300 followers dude u will keep growing so u are a good person to have follow me!
:D Well your upvote didn't make me a millionaire but your words made me feel like one. I will be following your stuff closely too, you have some cool shit. Thanks, I wish many keks upon you
Oh, what discord channel are you talking about? I want to join you guys too :P
Just Go to http://steemspeak.com
Pennies to the people! :)
Yes, we are now obtaining new images of every corner of the world every single day, and storing hundreds of petabytes of image data. There's so much for AI and machine learning to have a go at here, and we're just scratching the surface still!
Happy to have connected with you on Discord my friend! Steem on!
Very interesting article. I believe that all advancements regarding technology are two fold. On on side stand the idealists who want to use all applied sciences' research products for the progress of society and on the other side,the side that somehow always prevails, are those who want to use them for their own agendas that are rarely beneficial for the masses.
I think this quote from Agent Smith regarding our race, although exaggerated and far fetched, undeniably offers some fragments of truth...
'I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure. '
I love the quote @harrycane :) Thank you for reading and adding value in the comments!
LOL wtf wait, is your name really just Harry Cane or did u make the account recently for the hurricane?? XD
Ha ha, it's an alias, a blending of my real name and a nickname I acquired throughout the years.
very interesting tech there....fascinating yet somewhat frightening the uses for AI these days.
Yeah it's cool. I don't find it scary, yet. But knowing how early we still are in this space makes you wonder about the future...
we have to be careful with AI or it will take over the world. We need to set security laws and measures to prevent this from happening. We internet is becoming self aware.
People do not quite understand how powerful AI is already and it is just in its early stages. AI is one of the biggest game changers we have ever seen. The level of what humans are capable of is going to explode because of AI. What is deemed a difficult or unsolvable problem today is child's play for AI. As computing power continues to grow, we will see more powerful AI systems which attack things such as medical, climate, poverty, and genetics.
We really are on the cusp of massive upward explosion.
You're 100% right that AI will be huge and that most people do not comprehend how much it will impact their lives. But do you have any thoughts on how the increasing access to satellite images (an image provided of every corner of the world, every day) can be used?
Great post!
AI is already being used in the USA justice system. I wrote a quick and dirty blog post earlier today on some IA ethics to take into consideration when developing those system. Feel free to take a look: https://steemit.com/ai/@protoken/if-you-feed-your-artificial-intelligence-racist-data-your-artificial-intelligence-will-become-a-racist
This and profiling are dangerous tools. One could use this to determine which kids are promising to invest into for education programs. From a utilitarian point of view seems right, but is quite dangerous.
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But does this app surmise and deduce, or just relate back information you already gave it, so to speak? When you write "the map of New York or St. Louis where the app currently works", this seems to imply that the app studied New York, then made inferences about New York. What I would like to know is whether it can be given info on, let's say, 20% of American households, and then make highly accurate inferences about the 80% it knows nothing about.
I cannot believe that it is real. It just seems the topic of the sci-fi movies where they can scan an area and know everything about it but this is really cool.