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AI watches millions of cars and tells cops if you’re driving like a criminal
- croes 3y agoHow many false positives?
- supportengineer 3y agoIt seems like this goes directly against the Constitution.
- recursive 3y agoI'm no constitutional scholar, or lawyer of any kind. But, I don't see how. The closest thing seems like "searches and seizures". But none of that seems to be happening. That would probably be applicable if it was deployed on private roads or something. Or maybe there's some other part of the constitution you had in mind.
- killdozer 3y agoSearching through a database of license plates to determine cause for a stop is plainly a warrantless search, SCOTUS is a dumpster who bend over backwards for LE but lets not pretend there's any merit to most of these decisions.
- freedomben 3y agoYeah I hate what's happening, but I don't think it's unconstitutional (though I would strongly bet that the founders never could have imagined the capabilities that modern tech provides). It's more the equivalent of hiring billions of cops and having them watch every part of the road all the time and flagging when they see something "suspicious." I don't think the constitution would prohibit hiring billions of cops, if some jurisdiction were inclined to do such a thing. The mass surveillance is an extension of that principle.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago> It's more the equivalent of hiring billions of cops and having them w That itself would be unconstitutional. There is also the "spirit of the law" which is "you're not allowed to go digging around to find ways to violate these rights by inventing outlandish schemes that no one could imagine in the late 1700s". When technology has no other effect than to cause the same result that might be accomplished by hiring billions of cops to watch everyone, then that effect itself is, without a doubt, unconstitutional. > I don't think the constitution would prohibit hiring billions of cops, if Why, though? That's the real question. Do you think the point of it was to just create a few hoops for the authorities to jump through, maybe for shits and giggles? Why do you think this?
- freedomben 3y ago> That itself would be unconstitutional. > When technology has no other effect than to cause the same result that might be accomplished by hiring billions of cops to watch everyone, then that effect itself is, without a doubt, unconstitutional. Which part of the Constitution would this violate? > Why, though? That's the real question. Do you think the point of it was to just create a few hoops for the authorities to jump through, maybe for shits and giggles? Why do you think this? I'm going to assume good faith on this question. The US Constitution mainly applies to the Federal government. The vast majority of these police units are at the state and local levels. The US Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government, and then delegates all the remaining to the States.
- titanomachy 3y agoIn this case, they searched a person's car after the software system highlighted their behavior as suspicious. The constitutional issue would be whether the resulting search was reasonable or not. We can agree that if the system was very poorly made and flagged 90% of drivers, then the flagging wouldn't constitute "probable cause" in a legal sense... so how good does the system have to be before we're willing to accept searches based solely on the system's recommendation?
- PM_me_your_math 3y agoWell no, they stopped him to investigate after the pattern recognition. They used a K9 who alerted. Turns out the system was right on the money because there was criminal activity.
- einpoklum 3y agoThe US constitution did not address the matter of privacy, but US legal tradition - over the centuries - has interpreted it to _imply_ such a right, or some kinds of privacy protection. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#United_States Also, The search part, and perhaps even the inspection of cars using the cameras, may be considered "unreasonable search" of the kind forbidden in the 4th amendment to the US constitution. Still, remember that both law and policy are made by the state and applied by the state, in the service of state interests, which overlap the interests of subjects only to a limited extent. The US government already basically wiretaps most people's private communications (via Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft etc. - Snowden revelations) - so why not spy on people on the roads?
- indymike 3y ago> But none of that seems to be happening. Google civil asset forfeiture.
- floxy 3y agoJust imagine what John Madison would think of the British red-coats doing this. >The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. >The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoWhich part?
- jjtheblunt 3y agoDo you refer to the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution? That prohibits unreasonable searches, but can the AI define what counts as "reasonable"?
- bottom999mottob 3y agoThere's no way searching someone's car, based off their legal driving behavior, could be misused! The police have no repercussions for sending warrants to Google for phone information. Is searching someone for their legal driving behavior any better? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-geofence-warrant-appeal-murder-rcna67028 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-geofence-warrant...
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago> The police have no repercussions for sending warrants to Google Yes, because judges, who are also human beings, love when cops flood them with stacks of bullshit requests.
- foomatic2u 3y agoWhat judge? Like ~third paragraph states system operates with no judicial oversight.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago> The police have no repercussions for sending warrants to Google Those warrants.
- indymike 3y agoThe police cannot issue warrants. They can ask. Only a court can issue a warrant.
- vorpalhex 3y agoA warrant requires a judge, otherwise it's not a warrant. If Google wants to obey non-warrants, that's on them but not legally required.
- foomatic2u 3y agoMost of these new data surveillance tools don't have a judge in the loop.
- kdamica 3y agoIMO there should be strict controls on who can access this data and for what, and how long data can be retained, but given those limits, this is exactly the type of thing we should be doing to catch criminals.
- barbariangrunge 3y agoCriminals like mothers who buy abortion pills for their daughters?
- FloatArtifact 3y agoTo me this smacks of guilty until proven innocent. AI or any automated enforcement assumes checks everyone all the time. Put simply data like this should never be collected in the first place as that's the only way it will never be abused.
- xwdv 3y agoClam down. No one is making an accusation of guilt, they’re just keeping an eye on an individual the way you might keep an eye on someone pacing around erratically. In most cases, they know it could mean nothing.
- FloatArtifact 3y agoNo, I disagree. It's the fact that they do check everyone. The same logic can be applied to automated speed traps and red light cameras. (Which do assume guilt) The only difference here is a ticket isn't sent in the mail or an officer showing up at the door.
- dang 3y agoCould you please stop breaking the site guidelines? We eventually have to ban accounts that keep doing so, and we've had to warn you multiple times already (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35558518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35558518). Your comment would be fine without that first bit. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Havoc 3y agoTime to re-watch minority report
- Tozen 3y agoWe are getting closer to Pre-crime Units, with each passing day. Except that instead of precogs (mutant humans), we will replace them with the almighty infallible AI. "Sorry, Joe, but our AI says you will commit a crime sometime in the near future. So we have decided to charge, convict, and sentence you to 10 years."
- FinnKuhn 3y agoThis system seems to work by using the locations a car has been to compare see if other cars with a similar location history are more likely to be used to transport drugs if I understand correctly. Assuming that this is how that system works I can't see how this is legal. Let's say police is only searching cars between place A and place B, but not between place A and place C. Therefore they find drugs in cars that drive between A and B. This system therefore is now flagging all cars that drive between A and B as suspicious due to the bias of the searches the algorithm was trained on. It could be that there are more drugs being smuggled between A and C, but the system wouldn't know due to data containing no searches on cars between A and C. If we now say A=downtown, B=lower income area and C=high income area I think it becomes very obvious how such a system that allows police control cars based on past searches is discriminatory and everything but fair. It enables searches without any reasonable grounds and I have honestly no idea how any of this could hold up in court, but what do I know.
- avar 3y agoHow are you making the leap from discrimination to the search being without "reasonable grounds"? Let's say I'm driving from A to B and the police stops me with a trunk full of heroin. I'm supposed to argue that if they'd only searched drivers travelling from A to C they'd find trucks full of cocaine instead? Maybe that's true, but I'm still breaking the law. You could argue that police attention should be more distributed. But surely "reasonable grounds" for a search should be measured primarily on the basis of the "hit rate".
- gleenn 3y agoI am pretty confident that having a higher hit rate doesn't have any affect on whether it's reasonable grounds.
- jacquesm 3y agoThis argument has been made time and again with respect to racial profiling. Even if it works that doesn't make it right. You either have an actual suspicion or you're just engaging in profiling of some sort and that means that everybody is suddenly a suspect. This is why dragnet surveillance is such a bad idea.
- causality0 3y agoAlmost every article about this has glossed over the fact that probable cause for the vehicle search was a K-9 unit alerting on the car, not the traffic AI.
- s5300 3y agoYou’re glossing over the fact that the dogs are trained to respond to the officers commands, and the officers can make a trained K-9 alert on any car. Essentially parallel construction. Know their perp from other means, make dog alert on it, continue to abuse your power.
- CPLX 3y agoStopping people due to AI reports and having dogs smell them is kind of the problem everyone is concerned about.
- causality0 3y agoHe wasn't stopped due to AI. He was observed due to AI. He was stopped for speeding 15-20mph over the limit, illegally passing on the right, and changing lanes without signaling.
- CPLX 3y agoRight and the reason I wasn’t able to date Mary Sue in the 11th grade is because she had an urgent need to wash her hair.
- anigbrowl 3y agoDog alerts are about as objective as UFO witnesses. Having trained multiple working dogs of multiple breeds, nonverbal communication between dog and human is very easy to establish.
- newZWhoDis 3y agoUnfair take, UFO witnesses actually have a chance of being credible.
- nine_zeros 3y agoIt is getting clearer by the day that humans will use AI for laws written for humans. And this will cause a lot of grief for the people on whom these laws are imposed.
- TZubiri 3y agoMinority report was a great prediction
- gigel82 3y agoMost new cars come with telematics, some have always-on cellular connectivity for data collection (and supposedly for automatic crash notifications). It's only a matter of time until that becomes required (like the backup cameras became required in 2018 for example), and then it's only a matter of time before accurate / GPS positioning becomes part of the "required telematics" that get automatically shared with authorities (in addition to data brokers, advertisers and so on).
- JohnFen 3y ago> (like the backup cameras became required in 2018 for example) But there's no law saying you can't disable the backup camera.
- tomrod 3y agoUgh. Their model will guaranteed to be borked: PR(is criminal | visited locations) != PR(visited locations | is criminal). In other words, drug traffickers probably follow patterns typical for a larger subset of the population, which in of itself is not an indicator of guilt.
- JohnFen 3y agoIt seems like our world is getting more dystopian every week that goes by. I can't wait until this pendulum starts swinging the other way.
- jacquesm 3y agoWhat makes you convinced that it still can swing the other way?
- JohnFen 3y agoMostly because history indicates that this is a pattern that repeats over time. But also because if I don't have at least that small hope, the despair would be hard to handle.
- jacquesm 3y agoOk. I'm a bit concerned that the ways the pendulum has historically swung back are more or less closed off because of all the ratchets in place now. You'd have to upset a very large number of applecarts to get to the point where you can reverse the swing because with these tools it is now possible to identify the agents that would cause the swing to reverse. Breaking that is very tough, essentially once power is entrenched to that level it is unassailable. The DDR comes to mind, they had an iron grip on the populace and if they had access to today's tools I have no idea how any kind of dissident could even begin to get a movement off the ground before being identified and hauled off. The same for the various underground movements during WWII, they wouldn't have stood a chance. China may well get there first, (if they aren't there yet) and we'll get to see how doable this is, I really fear the worst.
- JohnFen 3y agoIt looks to me like what's happening now isn't really anything new. In terms of "ratcheting" and the like, we've seen the same thing happen repeatedly throughout history. And, eventually, things do swing back. The only question is how long the cycle takes (it may very well take much longer than a single generation) and how much work is required to get there. The famous paraphrase does (so far) appear to be correct: the arc of history bends towards justice.
- Scoundreller 3y agoI, like other intelligent criminals, break only 1 law at a time, so this should be fun
- EdwardDiego 3y agoSo, stay for longer at your dealer's house, occasionally bring over a cake, got it.
- barbariangrunge 3y agoWe are officially no better than china when it comes to mass surveillance now. We’re just a few years behind on deployment compared to Xi
- mikrl 3y agoThe title is ominous but we have had speed cameras for years and I can guarantee that if I do 15 over the limit I’ll still get passed by someone doing 25 more.
- einpoklum 3y agoIn Soviet Russia, police chase your car and has to stop traffic to get you. In Capitalist America, traffic stop AI chase your car and has police get you. ... hmm, not quite there :-\
- archo 3y agohttps://archive.is/2tfCC https://archive.is/2tfCC
- janalsncm 3y agoI’m not in favor of predictive policing. It’s not illegal to be suspicious. So I can’t get on board with this program. But I am a huge fan of speed cameras from a public safety perspective. Excessive speed is a huge contributing factor in accidents yet I rarely see it enforced. There’s no point in having a law if it’s only going to be enforced against the poor or minorities. I don’t see it as a privacy violation since any person can plainly see you’re speeding. I’m also in favor of more cameras to catch criminals. The first order effect of this is immediate: fewer criminals are around to crime. The second order effect is that fewer crimes will be attempted as the chance of being caught and punished approaches 1. This actually decreases the amount of police work that has to be done. Having cameras is effectively the same as having a police officer. Except cameras don’t shoot people, and footage is a lot more reliable than sworn testimony.
- Incipient 3y ago>Except cameras don’t shoot people Obvious photography jokes aside, this seems like a case of bad police training, or excessive guns in the US causing police to need to 'shoot before being shot'. If someone is looking a bit dodgy standing outside a kindergarten, I'd absolutely want "predictive policing" to go have a chat to the guy. May just be a case of someone excessively caffeinated waiting for their kid, in which case no foul. However the appearance of the police keeping on top of things deters others from committing actual crimes. I'd rather police prevent abductions than solve them.
- vogon_laureate 3y agoI live in the UK with a high use of cameras for everything. For speed it clearly works where there is an actual camera (it works less well between cameras). For crime there’s some evidence it might have a deterrent effect on property crime and drug crime. There is very little evidence to show that it has had any effect on violent crime, public disorder offences, and the like. There’s also an argument that over-reliance on cctv has reduced the kind of policing people most favour – community policing. The government has recently banned Hikvision cameras (one of the most ubiquitous brands) from its buildings over concerns about the Chinese company’s use of data and their role in the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in Chinese state run “re-education camps”. Cameras can be useful in certain circumstances, but their efficacy is often overstated, and there are many downsides.