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There seems to be a misunderstanding of the place of technology in the criminal justice system. There is nothing wrong with using technology to sift through a
by takinola 2y ago
There seems to be a misunderstanding of the place of technology in the criminal justice system. There is nothing wrong with using technology to sift through a mass of data points to narrow down suspects or point the investigation in a particular direction. However, this does not obviate the need for investigation to actually verify that the initial identification is correct. There should never be a case where people are arrested or prosecuted solely on the word of a database query.
- garspin 2y agoAgree. A better response to '80% chance that this is a known shoplifter' is for security to keep an eye on them. It should very quickly become apparent that it's a false positive (or not).
- hnbad 2y agoThe problem is that this technology is not sold that way, it's sold as a way to detect shoplifters. It's also extremely important how the result is phrased and presented: even "80% chance that is is a known shoplifter" simply means "this is a known shoplifter" to a layperson. But even a 99.9% or 100% confidence might be wrong so this isn't even an 80% chance - at best it's 80% times the statistical likelihood of this not being a false positive at 100% confidence, and that can never be a 100% chance. The (psychologically) correct way to think of this is as a colleague making a claim and telling you how certain they are. But this tech is not sold as a colleague, it's sold as a machine that is better than humans. It's not a perfect super cop but that's how it is marketed and why people buy it.
- jimmySixDOF 2y agoI am afraid the Appeal to Authority fallacy is one we as a society are about to be exposed to on a massive level and recognize as a side effect of integrating AI into our daily lives.