The Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) in Kannur, Kerala, is grappling with strange incidents related to its artificial intelligence (AI) cameras in the district, adding a surreal twist to AI-aided road surveillance. The 'smart' road monitoring devices have on multiple instances recorded perplexing footage of an unidentified presence seemingly accompanying vehicle occupants in Kannur, presenting a challenge for the department.
The MVD recently installed 726 AI cameras to help monitor traffic violations. These reports of so-called 'ghostly' captures began cropping up ever since.
'Ghosts' Captured On Cam?
Following the detection of a mysterious woman in the back seat of a car captured by a camera in Payyannur on October 3, a similar incident unfolded in Uruvachal. Here, a driver was captured on camera with a woman riding on his adjacent seat.
As reported by the New Indian Express, Meethale Kunnath Ali, a resident of Kadavathur near Panoor, vehemently asserts that he was travelling alone and had not visited Uruvachal on the day of the incident. Ali, a distributor of bottled mineral water and a frequent traveller within and outside the district, expressed bewilderment, stating that it had been a considerable duration since he last drove to Uruvachal, especially not on September 25, the date flagged by the AI camera.
"The car in the image is mine, but I have no knowledge of the woman in the visual. The e-challan was issued for not wearing a seat belt. I contacted MVD officials but have yet to receive a satisfactory reply," Ali stated.
While expressing willingness to pay the fine, Ali urged officials to elucidate the presence of the woman in the car.
This incident is not an isolated case; it closely follows another peculiar occurrence in Payyannur, Kannur district, where an AI camera issued a similar challan to a Maruti 800 driver. In this instance, the camera mysteriously substituted the image of children in the back seat with that of a woman. Remarkably, the actual children in the rear are not visible in the picture.
What's The Response From The Officials?
The department later attributed this anomaly to a technical glitch causing one image to overlap with another.
"We are not in a position to explain as it involves technical issues," stated M C Sheeba, RTO (enforcement), Kannur. "We will ask Keltron to look into the matter and resolve the confusion," the officer added. Keltron, or Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation Limited, is a state-owned electronics enterprise.
Even if the photos do overlap, it's highly implausible that the so-called images of the apparitions are so impeccably placed (read: Photoshopped) into the car seats, with none of the images bleeding out of the car's boundaries.
What's even more bewildering is that these images seem to appear only in a particular region. If this was an AI/technical issue, similar reports could have cropped up in other regions around the globe as well.
Also, why just women? Why is AI not capturing images of ghostly male co-passengers? As far as we know, AI has no qualms against any particular gender.
All these give rise to speculations that the AI captures could be an elaborate prank. However, there is no evidence to support the claim.
For now, we'll have to wait for the official response following investigations.