# Using AI to estimate crowd sizes

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2019-07-04

2019-nba-champions, ai, crowd-size, hong-kong, hong-kong-protest, nba-championship-parade, new-york-times, raptors-championship-parade, tech, toronto, toronto-raptors, urbanism, wall-street-journal

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![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/08aeac32dd8012533787f99719a00b77.png)

[This recent NY Times article](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/03/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-crowd-ai.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage) about crowd estimates for Hong Kong's annual pro-democracy protest is a good follow-up to [my post](https://brandondonnelly.com/2019/06/17/how-many-people-showed-up-to-the-raptors-championship-parade-hint-we-dont-know/) about the number of people who, allegedly, showed up to last month's NBA Championship parade here in Toronto.

For years, Hong Kong has been seeing [divergent estimates for its annual protest](https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-braces-for-mass-protests-on-anniversary-of-return-to-chinese-rule-11561946128?emailToken=79883dd6a023660147939d917e76df3cXXZmCbMymqPfJP+A3xeZyHNB26jEUMEglPDkFVNZDl5Dt7+d6F9M683TPbqMHFRFZvO92T5mgtNfx2rp4mVu5URvkL7AHw3edaK7mfbkDVCSBXiQugcLabqud0xOmZUv3sKYX4WNS9RiLdUcy9Cidw). Organizers typically overstate. And the police typically understate. This year, organizers claimed 550,000 people in attendance, whereas the police claimed only 190,000.

The difference this year is that a local tech company has started using AI software (loaded up onto iPads) to help supplement the standard practice manual counts. This year they concluded -- perhaps more definitively -- that 265,000 people protested in the streets of Hong Kong.

_Image:_ [_NY Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/03/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-crowd-ai.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/using-ai-to-estimate-crowd-sizes)*