5 ms·

It would also give every person convicted using their software an incentive to open an appeal.

Spivak 6y ago
I like how this is considered a bad thing. Like we can’t let this guy point out that he’s being convicted by an unauditable black box that suddenly isn’t worth using if it has to stand up to scrutiny because then everyone would want to. The horror. Like I’m actually kinda shocked this is the reality. I would have assumed that DNA evidence would have some blessed methodologies and tools/algorithms, with a strict definition of what constitutes a match or partial match specifically so this wouldn’t happen.
- hluska 6y ago
  This is one of these scary areas where reality matches my teenaged experiences playing Shadowrun. I used to hope that the brutal dystopia we played through was just fun. Now I’m seeing that the present needs a word even more brutal than dystopia. :(
  - alchemism 6y ago
    Kafkatopia
    - hluska 6y ago
      You nailed it! Thanks friend, that’s some wicked writing and thinking.
- belorn 6y ago
  Here in Sweden, there is a legal practice that you can't find someone guilty based on DNA evidence alone. Probabilistic evidence is nice to point law enforcement in a direction, but there is always a risk of false positives. In this case we are also dealing with probabilistic genotyping involving DNA Mixtures with DNA from several individual contributors, and most likely degraded DNA. It is the tool the police can use when other more traditional methods is not possible because of the mixture. That should mean the qualitative value of the DNA evidence is lower, requiring even stronger additional evidence from other sources.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    Interesting. What does Swedish law consider non-probabilistic evidence? Even something like eye-witness testimony I would consider to be probabilistic, given how easy it is to manipulate memories, even unintentionally.
    - acct776 6y ago
      Clear videographic, use of a PIN that only the accused had access to, etc
      - gwd 6y ago
        How do you prove that only the accused had access to a PIN? Surely that's probabilistic as well?
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    In the U.S.A., a man can be convicted upon the word of a single witness, even if the defence poked significant holes into the reliability of said witness. What can happen in the U.S.A. is that one lone man says “I saw the defendant do it.”; the defence attorney can point out that the witness was drunk at the time, that he has motive to lie, that he initially reported another story to the police and only later settled on this story, and what ever else to render him completely unreliable. The jury can nevertheless return a verdict of guilty, and there are no grounds for appeal then, as it is the power of the jury to decide who is “reliable”, and it is not required to explain it's thought process at all. What a shocking development that such would result into a criminal justice system where a defendant's race and gender plays such a factor.
    - mlindner 6y ago
      > What a shocking development that such would result into a criminal justice system where a defendant's race and gender plays such a factor. It takes only one person in the jury to hang the jury. It's not a majority vote it's a unanimous vote.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  I do not find this reality worse at all than people being convicted upon the black box testimony of blood splatter analysts, which is simply an expert testifying that in his conclusion the blood indicated such-and-that. Or of course, that the U.S.A. permits conviction based on the sworn testimony of a single eye witness, which is noteably unreliable. All of these are black boxes that are routinely meant to convict. — it would not surprise me if such software were far more reliable than human eye witness accounts, but if there's one thing I noticed, it's that a man is seldom afraid of bad matters, he is only afraid of bad matters produced by new technology; far worse matters can stay, so long as they be ancient enough.

I like how this is considered a bad thing. Like we can’t let this guy point out that he’s being convicted by an unauditable black box that suddenly isn’t worth using if it has to stand up to scrutiny because then everyone would want to. The horror. Like I’m actually kinda shocked this is the reality. I would have assumed that DNA evidence would have some blessed methodologies and tools/algorithms, with a strict definition of what constitutes a match or partial match specifically so this wouldn’t happen.

hluska 6y ago
This is one of these scary areas where reality matches my teenaged experiences playing Shadowrun. I used to hope that the brutal dystopia we played through was just fun. Now I’m seeing that the present needs a word even more brutal than dystopia. :(
- alchemism 6y ago
  Kafkatopia
  - hluska 6y ago
    You nailed it! Thanks friend, that’s some wicked writing and thinking.
belorn 6y ago
Here in Sweden, there is a legal practice that you can't find someone guilty based on DNA evidence alone. Probabilistic evidence is nice to point law enforcement in a direction, but there is always a risk of false positives. In this case we are also dealing with probabilistic genotyping involving DNA Mixtures with DNA from several individual contributors, and most likely degraded DNA. It is the tool the police can use when other more traditional methods is not possible because of the mixture. That should mean the qualitative value of the DNA evidence is lower, requiring even stronger additional evidence from other sources.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  Interesting. What does Swedish law consider non-probabilistic evidence? Even something like eye-witness testimony I would consider to be probabilistic, given how easy it is to manipulate memories, even unintentionally.
  - acct776 6y ago
    Clear videographic, use of a PIN that only the accused had access to, etc
    - gwd 6y ago
      How do you prove that only the accused had access to a PIN? Surely that's probabilistic as well?
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  In the U.S.A., a man can be convicted upon the word of a single witness, even if the defence poked significant holes into the reliability of said witness. What can happen in the U.S.A. is that one lone man says “I saw the defendant do it.”; the defence attorney can point out that the witness was drunk at the time, that he has motive to lie, that he initially reported another story to the police and only later settled on this story, and what ever else to render him completely unreliable. The jury can nevertheless return a verdict of guilty, and there are no grounds for appeal then, as it is the power of the jury to decide who is “reliable”, and it is not required to explain it's thought process at all. What a shocking development that such would result into a criminal justice system where a defendant's race and gender plays such a factor.
  - mlindner 6y ago
    > What a shocking development that such would result into a criminal justice system where a defendant's race and gender plays such a factor. It takes only one person in the jury to hang the jury. It's not a majority vote it's a unanimous vote.
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
I do not find this reality worse at all than people being convicted upon the black box testimony of blood splatter analysts, which is simply an expert testifying that in his conclusion the blood indicated such-and-that. Or of course, that the U.S.A. permits conviction based on the sworn testimony of a single eye witness, which is noteably unreliable. All of these are black boxes that are routinely meant to convict. — it would not surprise me if such software were far more reliable than human eye witness accounts, but if there's one thing I noticed, it's that a man is seldom afraid of bad matters, he is only afraid of bad matters produced by new technology; far worse matters can stay, so long as they be ancient enough.