A Japanese restaurant chain will fight “sushi terrorism” with AI cameras

If you think you’ve seen all bizarre Internet trends, think again. Dubbed “sushi terrorism”, the latest trend has people tampering with food and utensils in Japanese conveyor belt sushi restaurants. And it’s way worse than placing a GoPro on the conveyor belt. People have been touching and licking stuff as it passes them. Gross, right? But a major restaurant chain has decided to fight back, and it will soon start using AI cameras to detect any suspicious behavior.

Interestingly enough, the disgusting trend started at Sushiro. It is the same restaurant chain that banned photography in 2018 thanks to a YouTuber who put a GoPro among the food on the conveyor belt. More recent viral videos show people licking soy sauce covers, teacup’s rims, teaspoons, etc. before putting them back. They also lick their fingers and touch the food going around. Just in case you need proof of how big morons some people are, here’s one of the videos. No wonder we haven’t been able to contain the pandemic for over three years.

【悲報】回転寿司炎上界隈に新たな挑戦者あらわる
今度はスシローで醤油さしや湯飲みをベロベロ舐めまくり＆回る寿司にも唾タッチ pic.twitter.com/RMUk3caZQE

— 滝沢ガレソ🪚 (@takigare3) January 29, 2023

“I think these incidents of ‘sushi tero’ are happening because there are fewer staff in stores to keep an eye on customers,” food critic Nobuo Yonekawa told the CNN. He added that restaurants had recently cut down on labor to manage the ever-rising other costs.

It’s worth noting that Sushiro already uses cameras to count the plates that customers take. It helps the staff determine how much sushi is sent down the belt and calculate the bill for each customer. However, they plan to modify the system so it can detect any suspicious behavior and immediately alert employees. A spokesman for Sushiro told the CNN:

“We want to deploy our AI-operated cameras to monitor if customers put the sushi they picked up with their hands back on the plates. We are confident we will be able to upgrade the systems we already have in place to deal with these kind of behaviors.”

[via Engadget]