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How AI-powered tech landed man in jail with scant evidence

40 points by breckenedge 5y ago

danso 5y ago
Related story from VICE/HN thread from a few weeks ago: "Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI" https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-shotspotter-to-alter-evidence-from-gunshot-detecting-ai https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-sh... The AP story leads with the same wrongly arrested man, Michael Williams, but more broadly covers ShotSpotter's history and evidential failures. > AP’s investigation found the system can miss live gunfire right under its microphones, or misclassify the sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring as gunshots. Forensic reports prepared by ShotSpotter’s employees have been used in court to improperly claim that a defendant shot at police, or provide questionable counts of the number of shots allegedly fired by defendants. Judges in a number of cases have thrown out the evidence.
watermelongunn 5y ago
AIs don't incarcerate people. People incarcerate people.
- Verdex 5y ago
  Yes. But there's something bigger going on. So some asshole walks into the middle of the court room and butchers a chicken. Then he pulls out the liver and tears the thing apart. Finally, he confidently asserts that the defendant is guilty. He uses all sorts of science words like 'sodium gradients' and 'iron content'. Meanwhile, we're all professional haruspices over here and we're all like, no. The best we've been able to do is get chicken livers to correctly identify the number '4' and to generate cat photos. The courts and police (all over the world and deep into history as far as I can tell) have a habit of grabbing pseudo science or even straight up mysticism and using it to assign guilt. So here we are watching the part of compsci that's currently going through its alchemy stage and people are using it for legal decisions. Yeah, technically people are incarcerating people. However, we should at the very least be telling people, "Hey, have you seen that one James Mickens video where he talks about how machine learning should definitely be kept off the internet of hate (aka the internet) AND definitely not used for important decisions. It's both entertaining and educational."
- breckenedge 5y ago
  Like firearms manufacturers, AI companies bear some responsibility for how their tools are misused.
mx-e 5y ago
How on earth can „proprietary software“ with „AI“ in it be admitted as evidence in court ? Are there any third party studies conducted, to test the error rate of the system ? What’s the algorithm actually doing and what gets annotated by humans? „Move fast and break things“ shouldn’t be the motto when jailing people. This might be pseudoscience payed with tax money!
actually_a_dog 5y ago
Ugh. I hate that my first reaction to all these types of stories is always "damn it, why did it have to be a Black guy?" Sorry I don't have anything more profound to share here.
- kwere 5y ago
  Systemic racism or racial bias? has moved to tech?
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y ago
Nothing that's not peer reviewed and openly published should be admissible in court. Let's also remember that judges, lawyers and cops are folks that couldn't hack STEM.
- extra88 5y ago
  > folks that couldn't hack STEM Your first point was good but spoiled by this ad hominem attack. Being interested in STEM fields doesn't make one any smarter, or otherwise superior, to anyone else.
  - BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y ago
    There's a big difference between interest and competence.
    - extra88 5y ago
      You’re still clinging to the absurd assumption that everyone wants to work in STEM and the only reason one wouldn’t work in STEM is because they couldn’t “hack it.” Not everyone who works in STEM is even competent at it, for most roles it is not required. You have probably encountered some of them yet they’re still employed. What is necessary to work in any field is an interest in doing so, that’s why I chose that word.
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
>> For her part, Herring’s mother believes police had the right suspect in Williams. She blames ShotSpotter for botching the case by passing on, then withdrawing what she called flimsy data. Regardless of the other aspects of this story (the ones to do with policing, justice, and technology) the fact that we heard nothing from Herring's mother and her conviction about the Williams' guilt reeks of emotional manipulation from this article.
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y ago
For defense lawyers faced with Shotspotter: 1. Find an acoustics professor. 2. Arrange for for a firing of the putative firearm (or similar acoustic event) at the same time of day at the putative location. 3. Subpoena Shotspotter data for days of putative and test firing. Be aware that preannouncement of test firing may allow Shotspotter and/or police to manipulate data. 4. Have acoustics prof compare data of the two events. Sound propagation in urban environments is heavily influenced by configuration of built structure. I seriously doubt that Shotspotter adjusts for this. It would take a time consuming calibration effort over a 24 hour period to also allow for background noise.

40 points by breckenedge 5y ago

Related story from VICE/HN thread from a few weeks ago: "Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI" https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-shotspotter-to-alter-evidence-from-gunshot-detecting-ai https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-sh... The AP story leads with the same wrongly arrested man, Michael Williams, but more broadly covers ShotSpotter's history and evidential failures. > AP’s investigation found the system can miss live gunfire right under its microphones, or misclassify the sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring as gunshots. Forensic reports prepared by ShotSpotter’s employees have been used in court to improperly claim that a defendant shot at police, or provide questionable counts of the number of shots allegedly fired by defendants. Judges in a number of cases have thrown out the evidence.

watermelongunn 5y ago

AIs don't incarcerate people. People incarcerate people.

Verdex 5y ago
Yes. But there's something bigger going on. So some asshole walks into the middle of the court room and butchers a chicken. Then he pulls out the liver and tears the thing apart. Finally, he confidently asserts that the defendant is guilty. He uses all sorts of science words like 'sodium gradients' and 'iron content'. Meanwhile, we're all professional haruspices over here and we're all like, no. The best we've been able to do is get chicken livers to correctly identify the number '4' and to generate cat photos. The courts and police (all over the world and deep into history as far as I can tell) have a habit of grabbing pseudo science or even straight up mysticism and using it to assign guilt. So here we are watching the part of compsci that's currently going through its alchemy stage and people are using it for legal decisions. Yeah, technically people are incarcerating people. However, we should at the very least be telling people, "Hey, have you seen that one James Mickens video where he talks about how machine learning should definitely be kept off the internet of hate (aka the internet) AND definitely not used for important decisions. It's both entertaining and educational."
breckenedge 5y ago
Like firearms manufacturers, AI companies bear some responsibility for how their tools are misused.

mx-e 5y ago

How on earth can „proprietary software“ with „AI“ in it be admitted as evidence in court ? Are there any third party studies conducted, to test the error rate of the system ? What’s the algorithm actually doing and what gets annotated by humans? „Move fast and break things“ shouldn’t be the motto when jailing people. This might be pseudoscience payed with tax money!

actually_a_dog 5y ago

Ugh. I hate that my first reaction to all these types of stories is always "damn it, why did it have to be a Black guy?" Sorry I don't have anything more profound to share here.

kwere 5y ago
Systemic racism or racial bias? has moved to tech?

BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y ago

Nothing that's not peer reviewed and openly published should be admissible in court. Let's also remember that judges, lawyers and cops are folks that couldn't hack STEM.

extra88 5y ago
> folks that couldn't hack STEM Your first point was good but spoiled by this ad hominem attack. Being interested in STEM fields doesn't make one any smarter, or otherwise superior, to anyone else.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y ago
  There's a big difference between interest and competence.
  - extra88 5y ago
    You’re still clinging to the absurd assumption that everyone wants to work in STEM and the only reason one wouldn’t work in STEM is because they couldn’t “hack it.” Not everyone who works in STEM is even competent at it, for most roles it is not required. You have probably encountered some of them yet they’re still employed. What is necessary to work in any field is an interest in doing so, that’s why I chose that word.

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

>> For her part, Herring’s mother believes police had the right suspect in Williams. She blames ShotSpotter for botching the case by passing on, then withdrawing what she called flimsy data. Regardless of the other aspects of this story (the ones to do with policing, justice, and technology) the fact that we heard nothing from Herring's mother and her conviction about the Williams' guilt reeks of emotional manipulation from this article.

BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y ago

For defense lawyers faced with Shotspotter: 1. Find an acoustics professor. 2. Arrange for for a firing of the putative firearm (or similar acoustic event) at the same time of day at the putative location. 3. Subpoena Shotspotter data for days of putative and test firing. Be aware that preannouncement of test firing may allow Shotspotter and/or police to manipulate data. 4. Have acoustics prof compare data of the two events. Sound propagation in urban environments is heavily influenced by configuration of built structure. I seriously doubt that Shotspotter adjusts for this. It would take a time consuming calibration effort over a 24 hour period to also allow for background noise.