3 ms·

False positives are fine. It is basically a bloom filter. False negatives are very bad, but false positives are fine.

by AlphaSite 8y ago

jobigoud 8y ago
It depends on what is your opinion on the old question of do you prefer an innocent in prison or a free criminal.
- simsla 8y ago
  If murder is bad because you're taking away the life that might've been lived by a third party, then one could argue that false incarceration is similarly grave as murder. That being said, I don't agree with your premise. Facial search/recognition is just the first step of the investigation, identifying a pool of "possible leads". This is very similar to creating a list of people who were in the neighbourhood. Lots of false positives initially, but still a good place to start looking.
nmstoker 8y ago
As the other respondent says, it depends on your view of accidentally involving the innocent in police activity. In an ideal world, someone wrongly identified would just be questioned, they'd identify that there was an error and there's no physical impact just a brief disruption. That is the approach which genuinely could be beneficial to society. However, I am somewhat concerned that many police officers won't keep the fact that it's fairly likely to be wrong in the forefront of their minds. Combine that with an eagerness amongst some police to start applying "justice" immediately (rough use of handcuffing, pushing to the ground etc), at best treating people like hospital trolleys and at worst inflicting injury, and it's a recipe for escalation and injustice in scenarios involving completely innocent people (and you could argue it shouldn't happen with those who turn out to be guilty too, but that's a distraction!)
- simsla 8y ago
  It just needs to be framed as a search problem (many results), rather than recognition (one result). E.g. "Here are the 200 people the system thinks kinda look like that picture you gave me. The one you're looking for might be in here. Then again, they might not. You take it from here. Happy detectiving. "
  - AlphaSite 8y ago
    This is a more direct way of phrasing what I was getting at. Thanks.

False positives are fine. It is basically a bloom filter. False negatives are very bad, but false positives are fine.

jobigoud 8y ago

It depends on what is your opinion on the old question of do you prefer an innocent in prison or a free criminal.

simsla 8y ago
If murder is bad because you're taking away the life that might've been lived by a third party, then one could argue that false incarceration is similarly grave as murder. That being said, I don't agree with your premise. Facial search/recognition is just the first step of the investigation, identifying a pool of "possible leads". This is very similar to creating a list of people who were in the neighbourhood. Lots of false positives initially, but still a good place to start looking.

nmstoker 8y ago

As the other respondent says, it depends on your view of accidentally involving the innocent in police activity. In an ideal world, someone wrongly identified would just be questioned, they'd identify that there was an error and there's no physical impact just a brief disruption. That is the approach which genuinely could be beneficial to society. However, I am somewhat concerned that many police officers won't keep the fact that it's fairly likely to be wrong in the forefront of their minds. Combine that with an eagerness amongst some police to start applying "justice" immediately (rough use of handcuffing, pushing to the ground etc), at best treating people like hospital trolleys and at worst inflicting injury, and it's a recipe for escalation and injustice in scenarios involving completely innocent people (and you could argue it shouldn't happen with those who turn out to be guilty too, but that's a distraction!)

simsla 8y ago
It just needs to be framed as a search problem (many results), rather than recognition (one result). E.g. "Here are the 200 people the system thinks kinda look like that picture you gave me. The one you're looking for might be in here. Then again, they might not. You take it from here. Happy detectiving. "
- AlphaSite 8y ago
  This is a more direct way of phrasing what I was getting at. Thanks.