Protesters march from Victoria Park in Causeway Bay to the Central Government Offices in Tamar against the extradition bill on July 1, 2019. Photo: Felix Wong
Inside China Tech: How AI helps count accurate crowd numbers in Hong Kong protests
- AI concluded that 265,000 people joined the protest on July 1, while organisers said 550,000 people marched and the police estimated it was 190,000
Protesters march from Victoria Park in Causeway Bay to the Central Government Offices in Tamar against the extradition bill on July 1, 2019. Photo: Felix Wong
A simple task as counting could become a complex issue in the case of estimating an accurate number of protesters.
C&R’s crowd counting technology came into the public spotlight after the annual July 1 protest march in Hong Kong. Raymong Wong, the founder and managing director of C&R Wise AI, teamed up with Paul Yip, social sciences professor at Hong Kong University, and Edwin Chow, a geography researcher from Texas State University. Together they set up 7 cameras on the main streets at where the protest took place on July 1. Wong’s project concluded that 265,000 people joined the protest on July 1, while organisers said 550,000 people marched and the police estimated it was 190,000.
On this episode of Inside China Tech, we discuss with Raymond Wong on why a simple crowd number is so important and so difficult to agree on, and how can artificial intelligence help.
