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As much as I don't like single big entities having this power, this seems like a ridiculous stance. So I can have two pictures and look at them by hand, and us

As much as I don't like single big entities having this power, this seems like a ridiculous stance. So I can have two pictures and look at them by hand, and use my own brain to categorize them. But the minute I use a computer to do so I have committed a crime. It's this kind of stance which is going to make machine learning algorithms that casually identify people for convenience sake illegal. What the people in the court system have decided, is that they are frightened of being found out as hypocrites - as people who take bribes, and people who do bad things in public. You can always do bad things in private. No one can stop you from doing such things, especially when they come short of murder. There is essentially no difference between this technology, and the technology used for license plate recognition, but license plate recognition is totally legal. In many places, if you were pulled over by a cop, you would pay a hefty fine, and the automated license place readers will simply fine you a bit less or let you go to court. What's wrong with recognizing people that are committing crimes and sending them a notice, "We were about 1% sure this was you doing something wrong, so here's a 1% fine." Everyone agrees such systems will be initially imperfect, but everyone is also totally agreed that present law enforcement is imperfect. I fail to understand the problem. Unless of course, the problem is that everything is really run by criminals, and we're getting way too close to knowing the truth. That could be a problem. Edit: I appreciate honest debate more than downvotes. If I have a shitty idea, please tell me why. Unless of course, you are afraid of honest discussion. Cowardice is always acceptable here.

jsilence 7y ago
"What's wrong with recognizing people that are committing crimes and sending them a notice, "We were about 1% sure this was you doing something wrong, so here's a 1% fine." Everyone agrees such systems will be initially imperfect, but everyone is also totally agreed that present law enforcement is imperfect. I fail to understand the problem." Well then why not skip the whole imperfect parts recognition and simply fine the whole population each a fraction of the fine? We are 100% sure that the criminal is within the population. So lets just fine everybody one / $population_size fraction of the fine. The adequate fine will be paid and the criminal will be hit and hey, the system is not perfect, but what is?
- not_a_cop75 7y ago
  How often are you convinced that the criminal system is 100% certain it has the right person? How many times have they got it totally wrong? You have erroneous shit happening all the time. Fingerprints are sometimes identical. People don't want to admit it because it erodes at the idea of justice. But when big screw ups are as common as you've seen in the news, how much do you really really know about who is committing crimes? If someone picked me up based on fingerprints, I would much rather them say "We found prints matching yours at this crime scene. Statistically, there are 5 other people with prints like that in the area. We have circumstantial evidence that points to you as well. Since we aren't certain, but we have your prints we'll fine you 1/5th of the full amount for the regular violation." Currently, we make mistakes that lock people up for years based upon uncertain accusations - it's always all or nothing. This puts way too much pressure on investigators to get it right and in the case of murders, put someone away no matter what. I'll tell you what - if they're going to make the mistake anyway, I'd rather have 1/5th to 1/20th of the time to serve. Edit: This is the 21st century. We're also not restricted to simply imprisonment. Other factors can be affected. It would be interesting if labels could be placed upon those who are suspect, like "suspicious". This could prevent certain purchases and types of travel which would make the kinds of crimes they are suspected of committing more difficult.
  - spdionis 7y ago
    > Edit: This is the 21st century. We're also not restricted to simply imprisonment. Other factors can be affected. It would be interesting if labels could be placed upon those who are suspect, like "suspicious". This could prevent certain purchases and types of travel which would make the kinds of crimes they are suspected of committing more difficult. That sounds so dystopian
    - not_a_cop75 7y ago
      Yep. It's also dystopian maybe to disallow suspicious characters around playgrounds where they could kidnap and molest kids, but we do that already. And gun violence in America has already shown what happens when we don't take common sense measures such as this seriously. If you knew someone had a 50% chance of shooting up a Walmart, would you casually say "Well we don't know that fro sure." or would you make a list of all of those suspicious people and track them? We already have what is a dystopian credit scoring system, and I don't see people in a panic, or protesting in the streets, excepting for an occasional person writing that their data is used unfairly. I'm in agreement really. If people don't want their information used for a credit score, they should be able to refuse to have their info used for it, but of course that comes at the cost of not having good credit. Social credit scores could function quite similarly.
deleted 7y ago
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jsilence 7y ago

"What's wrong with recognizing people that are committing crimes and sending them a notice, "We were about 1% sure this was you doing something wrong, so here's a 1% fine." Everyone agrees such systems will be initially imperfect, but everyone is also totally agreed that present law enforcement is imperfect. I fail to understand the problem." Well then why not skip the whole imperfect parts recognition and simply fine the whole population each a fraction of the fine? We are 100% sure that the criminal is within the population. So lets just fine everybody one / $population_size fraction of the fine. The adequate fine will be paid and the criminal will be hit and hey, the system is not perfect, but what is?

not_a_cop75 7y ago
How often are you convinced that the criminal system is 100% certain it has the right person? How many times have they got it totally wrong? You have erroneous shit happening all the time. Fingerprints are sometimes identical. People don't want to admit it because it erodes at the idea of justice. But when big screw ups are as common as you've seen in the news, how much do you really really know about who is committing crimes? If someone picked me up based on fingerprints, I would much rather them say "We found prints matching yours at this crime scene. Statistically, there are 5 other people with prints like that in the area. We have circumstantial evidence that points to you as well. Since we aren't certain, but we have your prints we'll fine you 1/5th of the full amount for the regular violation." Currently, we make mistakes that lock people up for years based upon uncertain accusations - it's always all or nothing. This puts way too much pressure on investigators to get it right and in the case of murders, put someone away no matter what. I'll tell you what - if they're going to make the mistake anyway, I'd rather have 1/5th to 1/20th of the time to serve. Edit: This is the 21st century. We're also not restricted to simply imprisonment. Other factors can be affected. It would be interesting if labels could be placed upon those who are suspect, like "suspicious". This could prevent certain purchases and types of travel which would make the kinds of crimes they are suspected of committing more difficult.
- spdionis 7y ago
  > Edit: This is the 21st century. We're also not restricted to simply imprisonment. Other factors can be affected. It would be interesting if labels could be placed upon those who are suspect, like "suspicious". This could prevent certain purchases and types of travel which would make the kinds of crimes they are suspected of committing more difficult. That sounds so dystopian
  - not_a_cop75 7y ago
    Yep. It's also dystopian maybe to disallow suspicious characters around playgrounds where they could kidnap and molest kids, but we do that already. And gun violence in America has already shown what happens when we don't take common sense measures such as this seriously. If you knew someone had a 50% chance of shooting up a Walmart, would you casually say "Well we don't know that fro sure." or would you make a list of all of those suspicious people and track them? We already have what is a dystopian credit scoring system, and I don't see people in a panic, or protesting in the streets, excepting for an occasional person writing that their data is used unfairly. I'm in agreement really. If people don't want their information used for a credit score, they should be able to refuse to have their info used for it, but of course that comes at the cost of not having good credit. Social credit scores could function quite similarly.

deleted 7y ago

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