High Tech Takes On Mass Shooters

Artificial intelligence-powered security cameras that detect guns are being pitched as an extra layer of protection against a plague of violence.

- Bernhard Warner

IN JULY, SHAGAF KHAN, a longtime member of the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and president of the region’s Muslim association, froze as one gunman after another entered the house of worship. Just four months prior, the mosque had been ground zero for that country’s deadliest massacre, in which the attacker live-streamed on Facebook his shooting rampage that killed 51 and wounded 49.

This time, the guns were part of a drill. Police officers were simulating a siege on the mosque, brandishing a variety of firearms to test a new high-tech security system developed by Athena Security.

With the help of artificial intelligence, surveillance cameras mounted inside and outside the mosque recognised lethal threats within seconds. They set in motion a rapid emergency response, alerting authorities and ultimately the congregants inside of imminent danger. “We were impressed,” Khan says of the technology’s performance that day. “We saw all kinds of arms—whether it be a pistol or a larger gun. All of them were detected.”

Mass shootings like the one in New Zealand, and more recent ones in Dayton, El Paso, and Odessa, Texas, are prompting some businesses and schools to install A.I.-powered security systems. The hope is that the emerging technology will help save lives in a mass shooting, which, according to Mass Shooting Tracker, a crowdsourced database, occurs an average of at least once a day somewhere in the land of the free, home of the brave.

Still, there’s only so much cameras and computers can do to stop a determined gunman armed with an AR-15-style weapon. Furthermore, the technology is prone to occasional false positives, while critics worry about the privacy implications of monitoring for firearms anyone and everyone who happens to be walking by.