Recently in Western Australia, new A.I powered road safety cameras have been rolling out to catch drivers using their phones behind the wheel. The system is supposed to automatically detect phone use and then have images reviewed by humans before fines are issued. But after seeing several examples online where people appeared to be fined for perfectly ordinary things like holding food, drinks, or random objects, I started wondering just how reliable these systems actually are and whether the “human review” part was as foolproof as claimed.
I decided to build an anatomically accurate replica of my own arm and hand to create a realistic looking hand phone holder. The goal was simple: see whether the AI cameras (and supposedly the human reviewers behind them) could tell the difference between a real person holding a phone and a fake plaster
arm doing it for me.
