AI to the rescue of kidnapped children

XIAO HAOZI (name changed) was kidnapped by human traffickers 10 years ago when he was just 3 years old. Although Sichuan provincial police had only a few childhood photographs of Xiao as clues, they managed to find him by using artificial intelligence (AI) technology. China Daily reporter Zhang Zhouxiang explains the technology that made this miracle possible:

Can you recognize a child based on nothing but its photos taken 10 years ago? Probably not, because we humans recognize a person's face based on certain physical features - the shapes of the cheeks and mouth, the size of the eyes - which change with time.

Besides, human memory is not stored in hard disks like those of computers - intact and ready to use. That is precisely why AI technology can play a significant role in recognizing human faces from old photographs.