Robotic Nation Evidence

Red-Light Camera Busts Cheating Wife

From the article:

A red light camera in Southern California caught one woman in the act -- of cheating.

Hawthorne Officer Mark Escalante said a local resident is challenging his $341 red-light violation ticket.

The ticket was mailed to the registered owner of the car. But the car owner says the camera's automatic videotape shows he wasn't driving -- it was his wife's lover behind the wheel. The jilted husband is getting a divorce.

But the new red-light traffic cameras snagged more than 1,400 motorists last month in Hawthorne, leading to a slew of complaints.

There's been a threefold increase in tickets since the red-light camera were installed this spring. Cameras snapped pictures that resulted in 1,414 tickets issued in June.

Some motorists outraged over getting the tickets storm into the police station to dispute the violations, not knowing the photos come accompanied by videotape.

Imagine how this trend develops. "Red light cameras" will be installed at every intersection. The reason they can spread so rapidly is because they generate revenue -- these robots are self-funded. [Similarly, there are already lots of "toll cameras" used to detect people who do not pay at toll booths.] Then there will be "gridlock cameras" that target people who block busy intersections between lights. Then there will be "speeding cameras" along every stretch of roadway. "Parking cameras" will keep track of every car in a parking lot. There will be cameras tracking cars as they enter every subdivision and apartment complex in order to deter crime. Pretty soon the location of your car will be known every minute of every day.

Then the same thing will happen, using facial recognition and similar technologies, to everyone traveling on foot. As you walk into a mall, a store, an office building, a campus, etc., you will be identified and cataloged.

Then the same thing will happen to protect vulnerable resources. We will see robotic cameras and sentries protecting oil pipelines, rail lines, lakes, power plants, electrical transmission lines and substations, airports, highways and bridges, etc.

In general, this will be a good thing because it will bring an end to anonymous crime and terrorism as we know it today. It will also be our introduction to robotic police. We are already acclimating ourselves to red light cameras -- the first form of widespread robotic policing. In not too many years we will be acclimating ourselves to autonomous humanoid police officers.