Global Courant 2023-04-15 17:00:31
Residents and business owners in California’s Bay Area are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to combat a surge in burglaries and robberies along with a shortage of police personnel, with a security company telling Fox News Digital that sales of AI-based surveillance has increased enormously.
Deep Sentinel, a Pleasanton, California-based company that provides AI-based security nationwide, told Fox News Digital that business tripled during the coronavirus pandemic and that trend has continued since then as burglaries and robberies hit San Francisco and the Bay Area. Continue to plague the area in general .
“I would say the business segment has boomed over the past year,” Tomasz Borys, Deep Sentinel’s vice president of marketing, told Fox News Digital.
“The way it works is that these cameras come with a sensor, so if an object comes in front of the camera, it triggers the artificial intelligence very quickly within a millisecond and determine what the object is,” Borys explained. “If it’s a human, that feed goes to our live monitoring center in seconds.”
SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR IN TORCHED FOR SEEKING FEDERAL ASSISTANCE TO LIMIT CRIME CRISIS: ‘YOU NEED US TO GET ON IT’
Burglars spotted attempts to enter the Rose Mary Jane cannabis bar in Oakland, California. (Deep sentinel)
The security system is manned 24/7 by live guards who can not only warn criminals to stay away via loudspeaker, but also send real-time information to police departments confirming that a verified active situation is occurring, increasing the likelihood that officers will respond quickly as there is no doubt whether it is a false alarm and the system also immediately relays information about the crime to the police.
In San Francisco, the increase in crime in recent years has been accompanied by a serious staffing shortage at the precinct, where the police force was about 800 short of officers heading into 2023.
Earlier this year, the understaffed department took 15 hours to respond to a burglary call.
SAN FRANCISCO LONDON BROAD MAYOR DEFENDS CITY AS SAFE AFTER GREAT, DEADLY ATTACKS
A potential intruder is deterred by a Deep Sentinel security system. (Deep sentinel)
“Small businesses in San Francisco are under pressure all the time and we have no protection from the city,” Eleanor Hayes, the wife of a cafe owner who was robbed earlier this year, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The message is, ‘You just have to be glad it wasn’t worse.'”
In Oakland, commercial burglaries are up 76% by 2022, That reported KTVU-TV.
Burglaries, robberies and other crimes have forced chain stores to close, including Whole Foods, which close its flagship location in downtown San Francisco due to safety concerns.
BIDEN CAN REGULATE AI FOR ‘DISINFORMATION’, ‘DISCRIMINATING OUTCOMES’
Drug users and dealers gather across the street from the San Francisco Federal Building. (Fox News Digital / Jon Michael Raasch)
The legal marijuana dispensaries in California are one of the industries hardest hit rising crime and Rose Mary Jane, an Oakland cannabis bar and lounge, is one of the companies that turned to Deep Sentinel’s AI technology and has already seen results.
“Most cannabis businesses in Oakland have experienced a high rate of break-ins, burglaries and shoplifting,” said Sway Macaluso, Rose Mary Jane’s store manager, in a statement. video posted on YouTubeadding that they were looking for a solution that would “prevent crime” while also adhering to cannabis industry regulations.
AI-CREATED MALWARE SENDS SHOCKWAVES THROUGH CYBERSECURITY WORLD
Asha Manaktala, an assistant manager at Rose Mary Jane, said the Deep Sentinel system recently saw burglars trying to break into their facility before their personal guard did.
“It switched, prevented and contacted the police before our security guard on the scene even saw the burglars,” said Manaktala.
CAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PREDICT THE WEATHER FOR MONTHS? THIS COMPANY SAYS IT CAN
Borys told Fox News Digital that police arrived on the scene within six to eight minutes of the Rose Mary Jane break-in attempt.
Another cannabis dispensary in Vallejo that also uses the services of Deep Sentinel posted a video online showing two break-ins on the same night that were both thwarted when the AI recognized the threat and alerted a live guard, who issued an alert over a loudspeaker.
THE SHOCKING RESPONSE TO AI AND WHAT TO DO NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
“This is Deep Sentinel Security, this is private property, the police are being called,” a female guard could be heard saying over the loudspeaker, causing the burglars to flee.
Borys told Fox News Digital that the spoken deterrents deter criminals 99% of the time, but the company is testing even stronger deterrents for determined burglars who ignore the warnings, including pepper spray, smoke machines and blaring sirens.
Deep Sentinel was founded by Dave Selinger, an early employee at Amazon, who had the idea to start the company after a neighbor was the victim of a home burglary, according to Borys.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“This all came about because the neighbor had a home invasion,” explains Borys. “The whole family, hands tied behind their backs, guns drawn to their heads. They had a sophisticated camera system and alarm system and nothing prevented that. Nothing got the police on the scene as quickly as they hoped.
“He decided to take matters into his own hands and create something that would be super preventative, something that was super proactive, and something that would be affordable and that anyone and everyone could use.”
Andrew Mark Miller is a writer at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
