AI bot calls out politicians that are looking at their phones during parliament
By Joe Colquhoun on Wednesday, July 7, 2021
Digital artist Dries Depoorter has created a clever piece of AI technology that calls out distracted politicians looking at their phones during important government meetings.
🔥NEW PROJECT🔥
'The Flemish Scrollers' is software automatically tagging distracted Belgian politician when they use their phone on the daily livestreams. This with the help of AI. Results are posted on Twitter @FlemishScroller and IG TheFlemishScrollershttps://t.co/9Hg0Qz8TnJ pic.twitter.com/kwzcn2DjfB— Dries Depoorter (@driesdepoorter) July 5, 2021

‘The Flemish Scroller’ as it’s known, watches all the politicians in the room from a live stream, using facial recognition software to automatically call out those that are staring into the black void during parliamentary discussions.Â

The project comes in response to Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon who caused public outrage after playing Angry Birds during a policy discussion two years ago.

Once detected, the AI software will automatically send out a public message to the guilty party via Twitter and Instagram, naming and shaming them to their wide audience of followers.
Dear distracted @JanJambon, pls stay focused! pic.twitter.com/sYU3VDfluz
— The Flemish Scrollers (@FlemishScroller) July 5, 2021

When parliament is not in session, the AI bot will continue to learn how to spot these preoccupied politicians by analysing and learning from archived live streams instead.

Only 24 hours from going live, the program has already identified four cases of politicians distracted by their phones, calculating the exact amount of time spent staring at their screen instead of listening.Â
Dear distracted @Petervanrompuy, pls stay focused! pic.twitter.com/Vp0uX7bgDs
— The Flemish Scrollers (@FlemishScroller) July 5, 2021

This, in turn, has sparked discussion among the software’s growing social media following. If you’d like to keep up-to-date with the distracted politicians, results are regularly posted on Twitter @FlemishScroller and IG TheFlemishScrollershttps://driesdepoorter.be/theflemishscrollers…
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