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It seems like they can detect liquid and metal, which is very different from detecting bombs and guns. That's like building a face detection library and saying

by abeppu 8y ago

It seems like they can detect liquid and metal, which is very different from detecting bombs and guns. That's like building a face detection library and saying you can find terrorists. If mostly you just identify people with water bottles or laptops, what problem would this really solve?

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Pattern recognition of common bomb and gun configurations? Or better, any non-standard configuration.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >Or better, any non-standard configuration. Sure, if your definition of better is generating a ton of false positives as a pretext for patting people down.
- jandrese 8y ago
  That might be able to detect something like a hand grenade (but honestly I'm dubious), but finding "non-standard configurations" seems like it requires a full up strong AI. It has to be able to look at a jumble of components in a configuration it has never seen before and recognize that it is a bomb. This is hard problem for humans and hits on several hard aspects of AI at once.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Or just recognize it as not-a-bomb. Easier - e.g. the set of metal things normally in luggage may be small
    - jandrese 8y ago
      Bombs aren't necessarily made out of metal.
      - darawk 8y ago
        No, but guns are.
        newman8r 8y ago
        guns can be made with 3d printed plastic. https://defdist.org/ https://defdist.org/
        darawk 8y ago
        Ya, but they're not very good.
        lostlogin 8y ago
        Considering the world impact a couple of box cutters had, I think we can agree that a gun doesn’t need to be all that good.
        darawk 8y ago
        They would have zero impact now. Cockpit doors are reinforced in planes.
        LyndsySimon 8y ago
        This isn't new, or unique to 3d printing. Plastic/polymer firearms have been around for a long time, including a few out there with ceramic barrels and chambers. Ammunition is easier to detect, generally - almost all of it is metallic-cased and uses a metallic projectile. There have been attempts to create practical baseless ammunition, but they've generally been failures and I'm not aware of any available for purchase commercially. Ultimately, this sort of thing is interesting from a technical perspective but not really very useful. This is even more the case in the US, as firearms are ubiquitous. In 2016, there were 14.5 million active concealed carry permits in the US, and in 11 states, no license was required to carry concealed. Given that something like one in twenty or so adults in most parts of the country are probably carrying a firearm at any given time, knowing "there's a gun in the room" isn't very useful.
killjoywashere 8y ago
Proof of concept. If they get funded, expect this to disappear from public view for a couple years while they build up their object database and train their network. Then it will be quietly sold to the police and military. Then there will be a "whistleblower" in 2028, but you heard it here first.

by abeppu 8y ago

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

Pattern recognition of common bomb and gun configurations? Or better, any non-standard configuration.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>Or better, any non-standard configuration. Sure, if your definition of better is generating a ton of false positives as a pretext for patting people down.
jandrese 8y ago
That might be able to detect something like a hand grenade (but honestly I'm dubious), but finding "non-standard configurations" seems like it requires a full up strong AI. It has to be able to look at a jumble of components in a configuration it has never seen before and recognize that it is a bomb. This is hard problem for humans and hits on several hard aspects of AI at once.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Or just recognize it as not-a-bomb. Easier - e.g. the set of metal things normally in luggage may be small
  - jandrese 8y ago
    Bombs aren't necessarily made out of metal.
    - darawk 8y ago
      No, but guns are.
      - newman8r 8y ago
        guns can be made with 3d printed plastic. https://defdist.org/ https://defdist.org/
        darawk 8y ago
        Ya, but they're not very good.
        lostlogin 8y ago
        Considering the world impact a couple of box cutters had, I think we can agree that a gun doesn’t need to be all that good.
        darawk 8y ago
        They would have zero impact now. Cockpit doors are reinforced in planes.
        LyndsySimon 8y ago
        This isn't new, or unique to 3d printing. Plastic/polymer firearms have been around for a long time, including a few out there with ceramic barrels and chambers. Ammunition is easier to detect, generally - almost all of it is metallic-cased and uses a metallic projectile. There have been attempts to create practical baseless ammunition, but they've generally been failures and I'm not aware of any available for purchase commercially. Ultimately, this sort of thing is interesting from a technical perspective but not really very useful. This is even more the case in the US, as firearms are ubiquitous. In 2016, there were 14.5 million active concealed carry permits in the US, and in 11 states, no license was required to carry concealed. Given that something like one in twenty or so adults in most parts of the country are probably carrying a firearm at any given time, knowing "there's a gun in the room" isn't very useful.

killjoywashere 8y ago

Proof of concept. If they get funded, expect this to disappear from public view for a couple years while they build up their object database and train their network. Then it will be quietly sold to the police and military. Then there will be a "whistleblower" in 2028, but you heard it here first.