This artificial intelligence may start tracking you soon, by Lauren Tousignant.

For the last year, the people of Hangzhou, China – a city of more than nine million – have had every moment of their lives tracked.

“City Brain,” an artificial intelligence system that interlinks with a city’s infrastructure was installed in October 2016, through a partnership with Alibaba and Foxconn.

In an effort to optimize Hangzhou and make urban life easier, the system tracked everything from robberies to traffic jams and learned the city’s unique patterns and needs.

Residents were also tracked through their activity on social media. Their commutes, purchases, interactions and movements were all learned and absorbed by the AI database. …

Crime, car crashes and rush hour traffic is all down. The system can predict traffic jams and adjust the traffic lights in order to avoid congestion before it begins. It can also keep track of criminals, making it easier for police to catch them. And it automatically notifies authorities when it detects so much as an illegally parked car.

The system is also hooked up to residents’ cell phones and can alert them of bad weather or traffic jams and offer safer routes.

Privacy is going to go the way of the dodo.

hat-tip Stephen Neil