4 ms·

Georgia man is falsely arrested after facial recognition tech gets it wrong

42 points by mikece 4y ago

nine_zeros 4y ago
The solution is simple. Facial recognition cannot be used for probable cause. Let it be said that using flakey, buggy, erroneous technology to create a criminal record on an innocent person is unacceptable.
- prottog 4y ago
  Absolutely. We must be very, very cautious as a society when automating anything that can violate civil rights and individual liberties. The government must pass a very high bar indeed for that kind of thing.
  - sobkas 4y ago
    > Absolutely. We must be very, very cautious as a society when automating anything that can violate civil rights and individual liberties. The government must pass a very high bar indeed for that kind of thing. I completely agree, we should promote artisan civil rights violations and handmade destruction of civil liberties. Of the shelf, mass produced crap will only lead to the lowest common denominator and we will loose the soul of such endeavours.
    - prottog 4y ago
      You jest but arrive at precisely the point I want to make. When there are actual "artisans" who are violating civil rights with their "hands" (i.e. real police officers, judges, district attorneys), wrongdoers can be brought to justice, however unsatisfactory that process may be. But when a nameless corporation sells a faceless software product that violates civil rights, the diffusion of responsibility is much, much easier.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Title should be "Georgia man is falsely arrested after people issuing warrant fail to perform their duties".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
CDBackslash 4y ago
What's the rate of false positives? Would like to see a peer-reviewed article of the most advanced recognition models. Simply put - no matter the accuracy, you'll only have some type 2 errors, and hence a journalist will be able to write an anecdotal story about the injustice that a improperly identified person faced. All processes (criminal justice or otherwise) have error rates - yet not all anecdotal stories are covered. There is typically a straw-man argument that facial recognition is not accurate enough to be used - but I've never seen an argument why the models cannot be improved to the point where they are extremely accurate. The result should not be to ban facial recognition, it should be to have an expeditious process to recognize and compensate people who have been identified in error.
- 1970-01-01 4y ago
  The article is a terrible on critical details. No mention of hit confidence levels, software, hardware, or review process.
- humanistbot 4y ago
  > All processes (criminal justice or otherwise) have error rates - yet not all anecdotal stories are covered Normally this is a correct take on AI criticism; how many car crashes do the news report versus a not-so-self-driving car? But with policing, at least in the US, the past 10 years has been a continuous cycle of reporting and discussion about traditional analog false positive errors in policing, which often correlate with race. Over the past 10 years, I don't think there is another sector of decision-making that has been subjected to as much scrutiny as analog policing in the US.
Imnimo 4y ago
Suppose you had a guy whose only job was to flip through millions of photos until he found someone he thought looked like the photo of the suspect. Would you accept his word as sufficient evidence to arrest someone? I certainly wouldn't, and changing the man flipping through pictures to an AI shouldn't change that.
- sobkas 4y ago
  > Suppose you had a guy whose only job was to flip through millions of photos until he found someone he thought looked like the photo of the suspect. Would you accept his word as sufficient evidence to arrest someone? I certainly wouldn't, and changing the man flipping through pictures to an AI shouldn't change that. Do we even have a way to discern why AI choose this particular picture? Are we sure it didn't happen because both pictures were mugshots or cat in the background upped the score?

42 points by mikece 4y ago

The solution is simple. Facial recognition cannot be used for probable cause. Let it be said that using flakey, buggy, erroneous technology to create a criminal record on an innocent person is unacceptable.

prottog 4y ago
Absolutely. We must be very, very cautious as a society when automating anything that can violate civil rights and individual liberties. The government must pass a very high bar indeed for that kind of thing.
- sobkas 4y ago
  > Absolutely. We must be very, very cautious as a society when automating anything that can violate civil rights and individual liberties. The government must pass a very high bar indeed for that kind of thing. I completely agree, we should promote artisan civil rights violations and handmade destruction of civil liberties. Of the shelf, mass produced crap will only lead to the lowest common denominator and we will loose the soul of such endeavours.
  - prottog 4y ago
    You jest but arrive at precisely the point I want to make. When there are actual "artisans" who are violating civil rights with their "hands" (i.e. real police officers, judges, district attorneys), wrongdoers can be brought to justice, however unsatisfactory that process may be. But when a nameless corporation sells a faceless software product that violates civil rights, the diffusion of responsibility is much, much easier.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
Title should be "Georgia man is falsely arrested after people issuing warrant fail to perform their duties".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

CDBackslash 4y ago

What's the rate of false positives? Would like to see a peer-reviewed article of the most advanced recognition models. Simply put - no matter the accuracy, you'll only have some type 2 errors, and hence a journalist will be able to write an anecdotal story about the injustice that a improperly identified person faced. All processes (criminal justice or otherwise) have error rates - yet not all anecdotal stories are covered. There is typically a straw-man argument that facial recognition is not accurate enough to be used - but I've never seen an argument why the models cannot be improved to the point where they are extremely accurate. The result should not be to ban facial recognition, it should be to have an expeditious process to recognize and compensate people who have been identified in error.

1970-01-01 4y ago
The article is a terrible on critical details. No mention of hit confidence levels, software, hardware, or review process.
humanistbot 4y ago
> All processes (criminal justice or otherwise) have error rates - yet not all anecdotal stories are covered Normally this is a correct take on AI criticism; how many car crashes do the news report versus a not-so-self-driving car? But with policing, at least in the US, the past 10 years has been a continuous cycle of reporting and discussion about traditional analog false positive errors in policing, which often correlate with race. Over the past 10 years, I don't think there is another sector of decision-making that has been subjected to as much scrutiny as analog policing in the US.

Imnimo 4y ago

Suppose you had a guy whose only job was to flip through millions of photos until he found someone he thought looked like the photo of the suspect. Would you accept his word as sufficient evidence to arrest someone? I certainly wouldn't, and changing the man flipping through pictures to an AI shouldn't change that.

sobkas 4y ago
> Suppose you had a guy whose only job was to flip through millions of photos until he found someone he thought looked like the photo of the suspect. Would you accept his word as sufficient evidence to arrest someone? I certainly wouldn't, and changing the man flipping through pictures to an AI shouldn't change that. Do we even have a way to discern why AI choose this particular picture? Are we sure it didn't happen because both pictures were mugshots or cat in the background upped the score?