You’re sitting in class listening to today’s lesson when your mind starts to wander. At first, your teacher doesn’t notice you’ve stopped paying attention—but the cameras watching you do. They scan the faces of you and your classmates every second to determine how engaged you are. The devices alert your teacher, who tells you to quit daydreaming. You sit up straight and glance warily at the artificial eyes watching you.
This scenario may sound like science fiction, but facial recognition technology like this is actually being used in a school in China. It can detect when students are listening, answering questions, writing, interacting with one another, or asleep. A similar system tested in another Chinese school even analyzes students’ expressions to track their emotions: if they’re angry, happy, disappointed, or sad. The data collected by both systems is used to evaluate students’ class performance. Each person receives a score, which gets displayed on a screen at school and can be viewed on an app by parents, pupils, and teachers.
You’re sitting in class listening to today’s lesson. Then your mind starts to wander. At first, your teacher doesn’t notice you’re not paying attention. But the cameras in the room do. They scan the faces of you and your classmates every second to see how interested you are in the lesson being taught. The cameras alert your teacher, who tells you to quit daydreaming. You sit up straight and glance carefully at the artificial eyes watching you.
This may sound like science fiction. But facial recognition technology like this is really being used in a school in China. It can tell when students are listening, answering questions, writing, talking with one another, or asleep. A similar system is being tested in another Chinese school. It even watches students’ faces to track their emotions. It notices if they’re angry, happy, disappointed, or sad. The data from both systems is used to determine how students are doing in class. Each person gets a score, which is shown on a screen at school. The score can be viewed on an app by parents, pupils, and teachers.