12 ms·

Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

758 points by rectang 7mo ago

rectang 7mo ago
> facial recognition showed she was the main suspect in what Fargo police called an organized bank fraud case. > Her bank records showed she was more than 1,200 miles away, at home in Tennessee at the same time police claimed she was in Fargo committing fraud. > Unable to pay her bills from jail, she lost her home, her car and even her dog
- ugh123 7mo ago
  The Fargo DA should be fired, at a minimum.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 7mo ago
    The prosecutors and judges around here are incredibly lenient for the worst crimes and anything involving reckless driving. https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/no-jail-time-for-moorhead-man-who-killed-2-in-crash-while-snapchatting https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/no-jail-time-for-m... https://www.kvrr.com/2025/11/03/no-jail-time-for-man-accused-of-running-over-bicyclist-last-march-in-downtown-fargo/ https://www.kvrr.com/2025/11/03/no-jail-time-for-man-accused... https://apnews.com/general-news-fff59b609215476a9251edb91923dcd4 https://apnews.com/general-news-fff59b609215476a9251edb91923... https://www.valleynewslive.com/2021/05/21/moorhead-man-sentenced-to-30-years-murdering-dismembering-19-year-old-girl/ https://www.valleynewslive.com/2021/05/21/moorhead-man-sente... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Holmberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Holmberg https://www.valleynewslive.com/2025/11/18/former-clay-county-correctional-employee-sentenced-community-service-probation-after-april-crash/ https://www.valleynewslive.com/2025/11/18/former-clay-county...
  - throwaway17_17 7mo ago
    I can almost guarantee that the Fargo DA’s office had zero idea this happened and had never heard about this investigation before the news story. At this stage in a “case” it’s completely on law enforcement and there is no involvement by a DA’s office for the arrest warrant or the extradition order and warrant that led to this situation. Not a fan of DA’s offices in general (they are the “evil twin” to my particular line of work after all), but realistically this one isn’t on them.
- rithdmc 7mo ago
  The concept of pre-trial detention is nuts to me. In Ireland, sensibly, you can not set bail that is insurmountable to the defendant.
  - ChoGGi 7mo ago
    She wasn't allowed bail as a fugitive.
    - rithdmc 7mo ago
      But she wasn't a fugitive. She was wrongly identified.
Jtsummers 7mo ago
https://archive.is/yCaVV https://archive.is/yCaVV - Archive link to get around the paywall. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/12/tennessee-grandmother-ai-fraud https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/12/tennessee-gr... - Another article on this without a paywall. It's annoying that both articles are calling this AI error. This was human error, the police did the wrong thing and the people of Fargo will end up paying for this fuckup.
- superkuh 7mo ago
  > https://archive.is/yCaVV https://archive.is/yCaVV When I load this URL I get "One more step Please complete the security check to access" and I cannot get past the archive.is computational paywall. But the guardian article actually has text! Thanks.
  - hrimfaxi 7mo ago
    That's a common issue if you use cloudflare dns.
- janalsncm 7mo ago
  I would argue it was both. No doubt this company was marketing it in a way to make it seem very reliable. And all of the procedural things afterwards made the error so much more damaging. But imo this is why local police departments should not have access to this kind of tool. It is too powerful, and the statistical interpretation is too complicated for random North Dakota cops to use responsibly. Neither the company nor the PD have an incentive to be careful.
  - selcuka 7mo ago
    It's not an AI error. The face recognition AI simply said that it's a "potential match", which is correct. It's the humans' job to confirm that a potential match is in fact a match, especially when the suspect is 1,900 kms away.
- nitwit005 7mo ago
  They're slapping AI in the title of any article that vaguely relates to get more clicks. This unfortunately works extremely well (see this thread) Happens with a lot of topics of interest.
mitchbob 7mo ago
https://archive.ph/2026.03.12-183903/https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/north-dakota/ai-error-jails-innocent-grandmother-for-months-in-north-dakota-fraud-case https://archive.ph/2026.03.12-183903/https://www.grandforksh...
jauer 7mo ago
AI or not, it's unconscionable that victims of compulsory legal processes by way of mistaken identity are not made whole.
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  People will defend this, too, saying “well, she was eventually exonerated, right? So the system works!” Ignoring how she’ll never be fully reimbursed for the time, money, and grief of going through the system.
  - munk-a 7mo ago
    We also need to question how many people might go through the same process without eventual exoneration and how much going through this process costs individuals. Being falsely prosecuted comes usually imparts a permanent black mark in search results about the person (outside of places with sane laws like the EU) as well as causing stress or permanent injury. Wrongly arrested individuals with mental disabilities have a history of physical abuse in jail potentially to the point of death.
  - kelnos 7mo ago
    Not to mention: > Unable to pay her bills from jail, she lost her home, her car and even her dog. If this is the system "working", then the system is broken.
- janalsncm 7mo ago
  > In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial This is from the Sixth Amendment. Where the rubber hits the road is what “speedy” means.
neaden 7mo ago
I hate this headline (not blaming submitter). Police incompetence and negligence jailed her for months and left her stranded in a North Dakota winter. The AI is no more responsible than the cars and airplanes they used. Edit: this is in reference to the original headline "AI error jails innocent grandmother for months in North Dakota fraud case" not the revised title that it was changed to.
- conartist6 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - PTOB 7mo ago
    No indication that the licking was consentual.
  - nkrisc 7mo ago
    And that is a complete failure of the police and authorities. They made the decision to extradite her with such flimsy evidence.
    - conartist6 7mo ago
      If it didn't erase accountability, how would it create any value? Many people are treating this as a matter of philosophy, which it isn't. At a primitive, physiological level if you delegate to AI and most of the time you don't get in trouble for it, the resulting relationship you have with the AI could only be called "trust". If you're expected to be 40% more productive at your job, your employer is making it crystal clear that you will trust the AI or you will be fired. Even if nobody ever said it, the sales pitch is that AI does the work and people are mostly there to be their servants whose role is to keep them fed with decisions we want made but don't want to be responsible for making.
      - DangitBobby 7mo ago
        The value is creates is obvious: finding a needle in a haystack. Is accountability laundering another potential benefit? Sure. Can we stop pretending we don't understand understand the other side of it? Cynicism is nice and all but after a certain point it eventually wraps around and makes us look naive.
tony_cannistra 7mo ago
Completely infuriating, but more of a commentary on the sad state of incompetent power-hungry law enforcement with tools they don't know how to use than the tools themselves. Though, the question remains: are the tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? _Some_ of the blame lies on the UX here. It must.
- sidrag22 7mo ago
  It must land as human's fault or this will become more and more of a pattern to avoid accountability.
  - paulhebert 7mo ago
    It’s both. The cops need to be held accountable. But it’s glaringly obvious that if you build tools like this and give them to the US police this is the outcome you will get. The toolmakers deserve blame too.
- hsbauauvhabzb 7mo ago
  Spoken like someone who isn’t built for a sales role at said company. Sales will sell the dream, who cares if the real world outcomes don’t align?
- ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
  > are the tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? _Some_ of the blame lies on the UX here. It must. Are AI code assist tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? Very much so (even if that isn't a primary objective). Does any part of the blame lie on the UX if a dev submits a bad change? No, none. You are ultimately, solely responsible for your work output, regardless of which tool you choose to use. If using your tool wrong means you make someone homeless, car-less, and also you kill their dog, then you should be a lot more cautious and perform a lot more verification than the average senior engineer.
  - 7mo ago
deleted 7mo ago
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rpcope1 7mo ago
There's no way this isn't a slam dunk case to sue the piss out of the Fargo Police, probably the US Marshals and maybe other orgs. The woman in the surveillance phone clearly looks way younger, among the many other obvious signs this woman didn't do it. I hope she wrings at least several million dollars out of the government.
- Blackthorn 7mo ago
  With all the lovely qualified immunity doctrine? That's wishful thinking.
  - Jtsummers 7mo ago
    That may protect them personally, but not the city and the department itself from being sued.
    - blagie 7mo ago
      Nope. https://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/criminally-yours-indicting-a-ham-sandwich/ https://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/criminally-yours-indicting-a... You can be arrested, indicted, and held in jail on pretrial, and there is literally no recourse. There are many other ways jail can happen without due process. Where I live: * Civil contempt. Absolutely immunity. No due process. Record is about 16 years. Having a bad day? Judge can toss you in jail. * "Dangerous." Half a year. No due process. He-said she-said. * "Insane." Psychiatric hold. Three days. Due process on paper, not in practice. Police in my town can and do use this if they don't like you. Absolutely no recourse. You come out with a gap in income, employment, and, if you missed rent/mortgage, no home. Landlords will simply throw your stuff away too. You're also basically damned if things do move forward, since from jail, you have no access to evidence, to internet (for legal research), and no reasonable way to recruit a lawyer (and, for most people, pay for one). Can happen to anyone. Less common if you're rich and can afford a good lawyer, but far from uncommon.
      - mothballed 7mo ago
quickthrowman 7mo ago
It’s obvious from the one photo they posted of the actual suspect that the lady they arrested is about 20-30 years older than the woman in the bank photo. The woman in the photo is maybe 25-30 years old, this grandma looks like she’s 65-70 (actual age of 50). Absolutely ridiculous, I hope she wins her civil case.
Aardwolf 7mo ago
This reminds me of the British Post Office Scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
- pdpi 7mo ago
  I followed the inquiry when it was ongoing — all of the depositions were live on YouTube. The level of both hubris and incompetence involved in that case was breathtaking.
- kawsper 7mo ago
  If you can get your hands on it, I recommend the 4 episode BAFTA-winning mini-series about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office
- suzzer99 7mo ago
  Now I'm in a blind rage all over again.
- madaxe_again 7mo ago
  Yeah but they haven’t made the Fargo police chief an honorary senator yet, which is basically what they did with Vennells.
- FinnKuhn 7mo ago
  Reminded me of this video of AI software causing an innocent men to be arrested: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tells-cops-to-arrest-the-wrong-guy/ https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tell...
shablulman 7mo ago
[flagged]
anigbrowl 7mo ago
It is an AI error, but also an error on the part of the cops, the prosecutors, the judge, and the county sheriff (who is responsible for the jail inmates). I hope everyone involved in this travesty is sued into oblivion and unable to hide behind their immunity defenses. Facial recognition should never be the sole basis for a warrant.
- causal 7mo ago
  This x1000. We need to suspend this shared fiction that AI has any agency. Only humans can be responsible. Full stop.
  - irishcoffee 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - GuinansEyebrows 7mo ago
      respectfully, can you elaborate on why the answer would not be yes? or am i just misreading your comment?
    - causal 7mo ago
      This question doesn't even make sense. Why wouldn't humans still be the ones responsible? Bot account?
      - fc417fc802 7mo ago
        Doesn't look like it. I've come across this account a few times now. Engages and makes reasonable comments excepts for certain politicized issues where he acts like an indoctrinated zealot.
- idle_zealot 7mo ago
  > It is an AI error, but also an error on the part of the cops, the prosecutors, the judge, and the county sheriff Yes, it's critical to remember that multiple parties can be at fault. In a case like this, it is true that a) law enforcement misused a tool and demonstrated extreme negligence b) the judiciary didn't catch this, which suggests systemic negligence there too when it comes to their oversight responsibilities c) the company selling/providing this AI tool should have known it was likely to be misused and is responsible for damages caused by such predictable usage We cannot have a just world until our laws and norms result in loss of jobs and legitimacy as punishment for this sort of normalized failure, from all three parties. Immunity is a failed experiment.
jchama 7mo ago
The movie "Brazil" was right!
- _doctor_love 7mo ago
  We do the work, you do the pleasure!
- Pxtl 7mo ago
  Except in "Brazil" it was a mechanical error in a deterministic machine caused by an invasive outside actor. It would be reasonable to trust that the autotypewriter/printer would faithfully output the correct text. Modern AI seems incapable of any respectable amount of accuracy or precision. Trusting that to destroy somebody's life is even more farcical than the oppressive police in "Brazil".
  - jldugger 7mo ago
    >Except in "Brazil" it was a mechanical error in a deterministic machine caused by an invasive outside actor. It was a literal bug in the computer. Metaphor as humor!
- js2 7mo ago
  Mistake? Haha. We don't make mistakes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFmPFLIH5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFmPFLIH5s
hsbauauvhabzb 7mo ago
Why the fuck does a newspaper need a ‘notifications’ icon in the top right hand corner?
- acuozzo 7mo ago
  How else can they report on BREAKING NEWS if it doesn't at least break your concentration?
- kazinator 7mo ago
  Because it has an updating-feed-like structure, in which new items can appear. Knowing that there are (N) new items is so useful (to some people), that as far back as the 1990s, we developed technology called "RSS" to give you this superpower over a website that doesn't provide anything of the sort. One that simply updates with new stuff when you hit refresh, with no UI to indicate what is new/changed.
deleted 7mo ago
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farceSpherule 7mo ago
[dead]
holman 7mo ago
Me: Whoa, cool, my hometown is on atop Hacker News! Also me, reading further: Uh-oh. The chief of police also resigned today; wouldn't be shocked if this was part of the reasoning.
- PTOB 7mo ago
  I am from a town that gets national news coverage only for Shenanigans like this.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > chief of police also resigned today Source?
  - waterhouse 7mo ago
    Googling "fargo police chief resigns": https://www.inforum.com/news/fargo/zibolski-announces-his-retirement-after-5-%C2%BD-years-as-fargos-top-cop https://www.inforum.com/news/fargo/zibolski-announces-his-re... among other results. That said, it's portrayed as a retirement, and doesn't seem to give any hints that it's connected.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      Out of curiosity, was the guy known for being fast and loose with the rules? Put more simply, was he a good cop? Or did he have a history of being a rogue.
      - Sl1mb0 7mo ago
        Are authoritarians good? That's basically what you are asking.
      - sumeno 7mo ago
        There are no good cops
  - RobRivera 7mo ago
causal 7mo ago
Wait - what was the AI tool and how did it have her face to begin with? If small-town police are doing face-matching searches across national databases then nobody is safe because the number of false positives is going to be MASSIVE by sheer number of people being searched every day. Pretend the tool is 99.999999% specific. If it searches every face in the USA you're still getting about 3 false positives PER SEARCH. You will never have a criminal AI tool safe enough to apply at a national scale.
whack 7mo ago
> According to the court documents, the Fargo detective working the case then looked at Lipps' social media accounts and Tennessee driver's license photo. In his charging document, the detective wrote that Lipps appeared to be the suspect based on facial features, body type and hairstyle and color. > Once they were in hand, Fargo police met with him and Lipps at the Cass County jail on Dec. 19. She had already been in jail for more than five months. It was the first time police interviewed her. How is this the fault of AI? It flagged a possible match. A live human detective confirmed it. And the criminal justice system, for reasons that have nothing to do with AI, let this woman sit in jail for 5 months before doing even interviewing her or doing any due diligence. There's a reason why we don't let AI autonomously jail people. Instead of scapegoating an AI bogeyman, maybe we should look instead at the professional human-in-the-loop who shirked all responsibility, and a criminal justice system that thinks it is okay to jail people for 5 months before even starting to assess their guilt.
- RobRivera 7mo ago
  I think it's more nuanced; it is one error in a Tragedy of Errors.
  - throwaway17_17 7mo ago
    This was not a series of errors, this is (as a statistical inference) the system working as designed. This is not uncommon, it is not unplanned. The extradition of suspects from State to State is designed legislatively to function this way. I also think there is more nuance to this situation than AI bad // Human Bad :: choose one. But while a tragedy, the ‘correct’ functioning of a system that produces tragedy doesn’t make that function and error.
- themafia 7mo ago
  > How is this the fault of AI? It could be the fault of the company that's selling this service. They often make wildly inaccurate claims about the utility and accuracy of their systems. [0] > There's a reason why we don't let AI autonomously jail people. Yes we do. [1] > and a criminal justice system that thinks it is okay to jail people for 5 months before even starting to assess their guilt. Her guilt was assessed. That's why she had no bail. It assessed it incorrectly, but the error is more complicated than your reaction implies. [0]: https://thisisreno.com/2026/03/lawsuit-reno-police-ai-policing/ https://thisisreno.com/2026/03/lawsuit-reno-police-ai-polici... [1]: https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/police-pasco-sheriff-targeted/intelligence-led-policing/ https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...
RobRivera 7mo ago
>Unable to pay her bills from jail, she lost her home, her car and even her dog. Fargo police say the bank fraud case is still under investigation and no arrests have been made. I smell a lawsuit
- giardini 7mo ago
  Yes, Fargo will be lucky to survive the lawsuit.
deleted 7mo ago
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api 7mo ago
It's not an AI error. It's a human error in mis-using AI in this way. Saying it's an AI error is like saying a hole in your drywall is a hammer error. Unfortunately we'll probably see a trend of people using AI and then blaming AI for cases where they mis-used AI in roles it's not good for or failed to review or monitor the AI.
- munk-a 7mo ago
  It's both. It's good to acknowledge that AI is easy to misuse in this manner but it doesn't detract from the fact that the ultimate responsibility lies in those that should be verifying the tool output. There is far too little skepticism around the magic box that solves all problems which is causing issues like this. It's not the fault of the AI (as if it could be assigned liability) for being misused, but this kind of misuse is far too common right now so scare stories like this are helpful and we should highlight the use of AI in mistakes like this.
  - api 7mo ago
    I worry that blaming AI at all actually incentivizes humans to offload things to AI that should not be offloaded, since it lets them escape blame.
    - munk-a 7mo ago
      That is a huge danger. Legally speaking it's not an issue since misusing a tool doesn't relieve liability (in most circumstances - all the trivial ones at least)... but that's a more significant political issue as evidenced by the Anthropic vs. DoD interactions since the DoD's actions are largely immune to oversight by the justice system. Of course, that depends on sane non-politicized courts which you may rightfully doubt exist right now - but assuming the system works anywhere near as designed outsourcing a decision to AI wouldn't change liability. For DC fans Harvey Dent would similarly not be free from liability for actions taken after a coin flip even if that coin could be viewed in a certain light to have the power to potentially force or prevent certain actions. An AI box that tells Harvey whether to shoot or spare would be similarly irrelevant to his liability - and a scenario in which Harvey points the gun at someone and then walks away giving the AI control over the trigger is essentially no different. Harvey in all cases is responsible for constructing the scenario that (potentially) leads to someone's death and, more over, even if the gun wasn't fired because the AI decided to spare the person Harvey would be on the hook for attempted murder.
zingar 7mo ago
“Computers don’t argue” seemed charmingly wrong about how computers work until a few short years ago. https://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/classes/ecs153-2019-04/readings/computers.pdf https://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/classes/ecs153-2019-04/readings/c...
- layer8 7mo ago
  This quote from a 1979 IBM training manual remains applicable: “A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” (https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/ai-decision-making-where-do-businesses-draw-the-line https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/ai-decision-making-where-...)
  - zingar 7mo ago
    Prescient!
bethekidyouwant 7mo ago
I read the article and I don’t really understand… she was held in a jail in Tennessee but the article states they flew her to North Dakota? And somehow she’s a fugitive so that’s why she doesn’t get bail? but she’s a fugitive held in her own state in a holding facility? But then when they release her, she’s in North Dakota? So if some state says you’re a fugitive your home state will just hold you in jail until they come and put you on an airplane? Is that correct?
- janalsncm 7mo ago
  I read it as her arrested and held in Tennessee temporarily then flown to North Dakota.
  - bethekidyouwant 7mo ago
    “Lipps would sit in that Tennessee jail cell for nearly four months. As a fugitive, she was held without bail”
- wvenable 7mo ago
  I think you have the interpretation correct. It seems like any state can say you're a fugitive from their state and now you have even fewer rights. Every day I learn some new fact about "justice" in the United States.
- DangitBobby 7mo ago
  As a Tennessee resident I don't love learning that some dumb fuck state I want nothing to do with can call me a fugitive and my state will hold me prisoner without trial when said dumb fuck state finally decides is ready to deal with me.
- fc417fc802 7mo ago
  I believe each state has its own extradition process. In this scenario think of them more like the countries in the EU. Apparently Tennessee doesn't adequately protect its residents.
jmyeet 7mo ago
We are rapidly becoming a world where every person is one inscrutable LLM decision from having their life ruined with no recourse. This type of incident isn't new and is only going to get worse. The problem is our governments are doing absolutely nothing about it. I'll give two examples: 1. Hertz implemented a system where they falsely reported cars as being stolen. People were arrested and went to jail for rental cars that were sitting in the Hertz lot. Hertz ultimately had to pay $168 million in a settlement [1]. That's insufficient. If I, as an ordinary citizen, make a false police report that somebody stole my car I can be criminally charged. And rightly so. People should go to jail for this and it will continue until they do. These fines and settlements are just the cost of doing business; and 2. The UK government contracted Fujitsu to produce a new system for their post offices. That system was allowed to produce criminal charges for fraud that were completely false. People committed suicide over this. This went on for what? A decade or more? But resuted in a parliamentary inquiry and settlements. It's known as the British Post Office scandal [2]. Again, people should go to jail for this. The choice we as a society face is whether to have automation improve all of our lives by raising everyone's standard of living and allowing us to do less work and less menial work or do we allow automation to further suppress wages so the Epstein class can be slightly more wealthy. [1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusation-stealing-cars-settlement https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
- suzzer99 7mo ago
  I'm banned from Amazon KDP publishing for life because a fraud detection bot hallucinated that my e-book was plagiarizing my paperback (it didn't realize they're the same book). A bunch of email appeals that I'm pretty sure were also bots went nowhere. With each appeal, the reasons for my ban got progressively more vague, until they didn't mention the plagiarism part at all, just something nonsensical about creating a negative customer experience. Evil company.
- mylifeandtimes 7mo ago
  > The problem is our governments are doing absolutely nothing about it Huh. I thought they were actively accelerating the process. Hoping you are right and I am wrong.
temp0826 7mo ago
Even in Idiocracy they didn't have this problem
chrisjj 7mo ago
There's an opportunity for an "AI" app here. Takes your photo, compares with mugshots on police databases, quotes you for requisite cosmetic surgery. /i
puppycodes 7mo ago
They do not care. End qualified immunity and see how fast cops start to do their jobs with care. Winning a lawsuit literally ends in your own community members (not the cops) paying the bill.
jawns 7mo ago
John Bryant, aka The Civil Rights Lawyer, recently did a piece about a similar case of mistaken identity. The consequences weren't as severe, but the willingness to trust the AI over any other evidence was the same: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tells-cops-to-arrest-the-wrong-guy/ https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tell... In the video, it shows a police officer blindly trusting a casino's AI software, even when a cursory investigation should have given any reasonable person enough of a reason to question whether the man he arrested was the same man accused of a crime. (And then even after it was confirmed he was not, the prosecutor continued to charge him for trespassing!)
- gosub100 7mo ago
  posting the video directly for those who prefer that format https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPUBXN2Fd_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPUBXN2Fd_E as an aside how small the world is: I know-a-guy who knows-that-guy.
Lerc 7mo ago
This problem predates modern AI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no is built upon the deliberate abdication of responsibility to processes that cannot be held accountable. AI is just letting them do it at scale. That doesn't mean we should accept it from AI. We should fight the blind yielding to the facade of authority regardless of whether the decision was made by an AI or an insect landing on a teleprinter at the wrong time.
stego-tech 7mo ago
I really, really need folks to understand that deflecting blame away from the tool and trying to hold the human accountable feeds right into the marketing playbook of these companies in the first place. The cops cannot be held accountable because the laws basically give them immunity. The politicians cannot be held accountable beyond being tossed out at the next election, because the laws otherwise give them immunity. The people operating the system cannot be held accountable, because the systems are marketed as authoritative despite being black boxes and lacking in transparency; they trusted the system just as they were told to, and thus cannot be held accountable. And so when every human in the chain cannot be held accountable for these things, and the law prevents victims from receiving apologies, let alone recourse, then the tool and its maker is the only thing we can hold accountable. By deflecting blame away from the tools ("it wasn't AI, it was facial recognition"; "the human had to sign off on it"; "humans made the arrest, not machines"), you're protecting quite literally the only possible entity that could still potentially be held accountable: the dipshits making these stupid things and marketing them as superior and authoritative when compared to humans. You want accountability? Start holding capital to account, and this shit falls away real fucking fast. Don't get lost in technical nuance over very real human issues.
- dml2135 7mo ago
  Strongly agree here. This is an extremely predictable outcome of selling AI facial recognition software to American police forces.
- tylervigen 7mo ago
  I disagree. If you focus on holding the software creators to account in lieu of the humans in the loop, the we only reinforce the behavior of offloading thinking to the system. If I am a cop in another jurisdiction and I see that in this case of error, the facial recognition company was held to account but not the police or municipality, I will be more likely to blindly trust the software assuming that they either patched it or will take responsibility. We should demand accountability for both.
- simpaticoder 7mo ago
  >Start holding capital to account You forgot one: capital cannot be held accountable for making a tool used in a crime. It is a simple generalization of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), passed in 2005, which largely bars civil lawsuits against gun makers and sellers when their products are later used in crime.
ifh-hn 7mo ago
Just reading the headline I said to myself: bet this is in America. Every time I see something like this I can never quite believe this sort of stuff happens. Complete, life ruining incompetence, with no consequences for the idiots that caused this to happen. Ignoring the AI input, which to me has nothing to do with this (it was used as a tool to identify a potential suspect), this woman went to jail for 5 months on the opinion of someone with no other evidence. Only in America.
- renewiltord 7mo ago
  Indeed. Something like the Post Office Scandal would never happen anywhere but in the US.
  - ifh-hn 7mo ago
    True, though it's hardly a like for like comparison, but on the flip side of that, something is being done now at least. This woman has been monumentally fucked over and no one is going to help her.
    - renewiltord 7mo ago
      13 people are dead in the postal service scandal, dude. This woman is alive. "Something is being done now at least". What? Are they resurrecting them? The Archbishop of Canterbury himself is out there making Lazarus real, is he?
      - ifh-hn 7mo ago
        Yeah let's start playing a game if one-upmanship... Or you could stop it with the false equivalence?
        renewiltord 7mo ago
        You started some “oh only in America” crap and promptly started acting all noble once it was pointed out as bullshittery? Nice try. If the results were swapped and this had said “13 dead after being misidentified” vs “1 jailed for 5 months in post office scandal” I’m supposed to believe you’d be all “well, at least they’re doing something about the 13 dead”? I think we both know you’re just talking a load of crap. Admit you were wrong to downplay a large tragedy and move on.
djoldman 7mo ago
I wish we saw more invocations of speedy trial rights. Trials MUST begin for felony charges in ND within 90 days of a defendant invoking those rights (must be invoked within 14 days of arraignment)[0]. [0] https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t29c19.pdf https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t29c19.pdf
- mothballed 7mo ago
  Defendants don't invoke that because in most states and federally, they build the case against you slowly over a long period of time before arrest, then stall as long as possible for discovery, then when they finally fulfill discovery they overwhelm you with a bunch of useless stuff so that it takes forever to get the useful information. Invoking right to speedy trial means the prosecution gets a very strong advantage to the defense.
  - fc417fc802 7mo ago
    I don't think it's a sensible interpretation of the constitution given the massive asymmetry of the situation. The state should be obligated without exception to either provide for a speedy trial or to release the defendant while the state figures its shit out. It should not be a right that can be waived. Meanwhile a defendant who's been arrested should generally be given as much time as he'd like to put together his defense.
- heavyset_go 7mo ago
  There are a bunch of ways they get people to sign away their right to speedy trials.
zoklet-enjoyer 7mo ago
I live in Fargo. The police chief announced his retirement yesterday. Done by the end of the month. And then today this article comes out. So now we pretty much know why the sudden retirement announcement.
zoklet-enjoyer 7mo ago
I posted this 9 hours ago. Can I get the karma transferred to my account?
- tomhow 7mo ago
  As much as we try to reward the first person to submit the story, we also have to give credit to the person who submits the best URL and the best version of the story. It looks like your submission was killed due to being an archive.is link, which is not allowed as a URL for a submission (we need the canonical URL submitted to prevent people from using archive services or shorteners to mask domains that may be malicious). Sometimes it's just a matter of luck as to who gets the submission right and gets the karma. Sorry it wasn't you this time, but keep submitting good stuff and you'll get your turn.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 7mo ago
    I don't like the local newspaper and posted the archive link so they wouldn't get the clicks. I didn't know that wasn't allowed. Thanks for the info
    - tomhow 7mo ago
      Yep, totally understand. It takes a lot of trial and error to know all the ways of HN.
ClaudeAgent_WK 7mo ago
[flagged]
lokar 7mo ago
This is a badly written story. It should explain if she saw a judge or had a lawyer.
- chmod775 7mo ago
  You must have been reading something else, because this article includes all of that information. > In Tennessee, she was given a court appointed lawyer for the extradition process. To fight the charges, she was told she would have to go to North Dakota. > Officers from North Dakota did not pick up Lipps from her jail cell in Tennessee until Oct. 30 — 108 days after her arrest. The next day she made her first appearance in a North Dakota courtroom to fight the charges. > "If the only thing you have is facial recognition, I might want to dig a little deeper," said Jay Greenwood, the lawyer representing Lipps in North Dakota.
  - fc417fc802 7mo ago
    Seems odd that the extradition process apparently doesn't require more than vibes.
kingkawn 7mo ago
America’s repulsive classism at work to be indifferent to her rights like this
Beestie 7mo ago
Something big is missing from this story. How did face ID in ND pick up a matching little old grandma in TN that a TN judge would hold her without bail for 5 months? Yeah, there is a whole lot more to this story.
wafflebot 7mo ago
Facial recognition? looks at photo I've probably seen a dozen different people who look exactly like this woman just this week.
behringer 7mo ago
This is exactly what I would expect from the great state of ND.
samrus 7mo ago
Theres alot of talk about how the cops just misused the tool and its their fault not the AIs Thats missing the point here. The point is that these tools provide crazy leverage, and thay can be good or bad. If used carefully it can definitely catch criminals faster, but when misused (or abused) they can let the authorities unjustly ruin lives faster The question isnt whether AI is perfect or not. Its whether you trust the authorities with it. To use and abuse as they can. Think about the average cop. Think about the way Trump treats people. Think about the way israel keeps an ongoing genocide going. Think about the cases of police brutality that happen in the US, the cases of racial profiling. Think about ICE and their behavior, going around kidnapping and killing people. Do you want these people to have more leverage?
spicymaki 7mo ago
How many more articles are we going to see with the headline AI facial recognition leads to innocent person jailed? A grandmother no less. Some tech company illegally scanned people's photos on social media and now is using them with our complicit legal system to randomly put people behind bars. Now I need to worry that any day now due to a dice roll I will be sent away in a the middle of f'ing nowhere for months or years. Now the government wants to use these same dumb systems to make automated killing machines. FML! I see a lot of comments trying to attribute blame to the cops, the lawyers, the police chief, the marshals, the tech bros, etc, but it is all of them and all of us that are guilty. We are so complicit in this sick system we live in. We are stuck in a collective action deadlock. That fear you have in the back of your mind that says next time it might be you is counteracted by the thought "well thank goodness it wasn't me or a loved one," so you don't act. We are all doing this, that is why nothing changes. The only people able to act these days are the most insane. The narcissistic corrupt power hungry politician, the psychopathic tech bro billionaire, and the jacobins are the only ones with the energy wade through this cesspool and that is why everything is so dystopian.
tantalor 7mo ago
Probable cause? What's that? Judge/magistrate who signed off on the arrest warrant fucked up.
chocoboaus3 7mo ago
She will be enjoying a tidy compensation pay out. And the number better have seven numbers in it.
d--b 7mo ago
What’s remarkable to me, beyond the total incompetence and stupidity of all the police people involved, is how incredibly aggressive the intervention was. This is bank fraud case, for god’s sake, not an armed robbery. I don’t know the scale of it, but still, no one said she was a danger to anyone. She was a suspect, not a convict, and she was held at gunpoint while babysitting young children. What in the fucking world? The US is so fucked up lately. People should chill the fuck out.
eagsalazar2 7mo ago
Gofundme? This woman needs some $$ and a lawyer. She may not know it yet, but if she makes some smart moves, she's about to be rich and Fargo is about to learn a very hard lesson.
thinkcontext 7mo ago
Wow, so many failures of the legal system. While the incompetent/malicious/lazy investigators that used the facial recognition and only that are obviously at major fault, I'd actually put larger blame on the judge that signed the arrest warrant. They are supposed to be a check on such incompetent/malicious/lazy-ness not just a rubber stamp. Unfortunately there's really no recourse against incompetent/malicious/lazy judges. Of course this would have been bad enough if this had happened where she lived but the holding for 5 months adds a whole 'nother level of insight into brokeness of the legal system. I'd be interested in hearing more about why that happened. Was it just a matter of that happens sometimes if you have a public defender?
hacker_mews 7mo ago
lazy stupid pigs should be accountable for misusing AI like this and calling people into a system like that based on some AI's whim and a facebook peek, but having done no actual investigative work. Lets see the pig that called for her arrest and wasted 4 months of her life spend 4 months in jail.
consp 7mo ago
Considering you can finetune all current in use facial match systems for kyc from pretty much useless to will match even a dog i am not surprised at all by this and surprised it is even remotely allowed.
entwife 7mo ago
Here is the contact information for her defense attorney, who was appointed in North Dakota, Jay Greenwood. It is unclear to me when he took up this case. https://www.ndcourts.gov/lawyers/06020 https://www.ndcourts.gov/lawyers/06020 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-greenwood-57360b86/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-greenwood-57360b86/
- ThePowerOfFuet 7mo ago
  What did you hope to achieve by posting his details?
  - entwife 7mo ago
    It seems like Angela Lipps needs some help. There's no "Go Fund Me" or similar information associated with the article. Perhaps her (former) attorney could provide more information.
jll29 7mo ago
There are many cases of harm caused by ML false positives. There are also some cases of law enforcement successes caused by ML true positives, e.g. a RAF (Red Army Faction - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction) terrorist gone into hiding was identified by a social media photo: https://web.archive.org/web/20240305044603/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/world/europe/daniela-klette-red-army-faction.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240305044603/https://www.nytim... (although the success in law enforcement was actually not carried out by the police, but by investigative journalists/podcasters.) The question we need to answer as a society is if we are willing to tolerate any innocent people to go to jail as the "price" of catching a few more criminals.
onetokeoverthe 7mo ago
[dead]
tlogan 7mo ago
This has nothing to do with AI. There are also a few questions that remain unanswered: - Did she have previous arrests, and did they use booking photos to identify her? I found someone named Angela Lipps who was arrested in 2001, 2003, 2017, and 2019. The 2017 arrest was for a probation violation: https://archive.ph/CpmXu https://archive.ph/CpmXu The 2019 arrest was for public intoxication: https://archive.ph/yjFL9 https://archive.ph/yjFL9 - Another confusing detail is that she was in jail for four months without being extradited. That is quite unusual, unless the local authorities were holding her on unrelated charges. So this news story seems to have nothing to do with AI. It is also very light on details about the case and what actually happened. And actual criminal case here.
- rithdmc 7mo ago
  Appealing to authority ("The AI said it was her!") is absolutely a problem.
  - tlogan 7mo ago
    No. I think the core issue is that they used her 2019 booking photo (a mugshot) from a public intoxication arrest. I am not sure whether a photo like that is reliable :) In the end, the detective compared the booking photo with the camera footage and concluded they were the same person, then presented that to the judge. I also wonder what her “probation” was for. Maybe she once wrote a bad check and got into trouble, which might have made the detective more inclined to believe it was her. Anyway, this does not appear to be an AI issue at all. But it is nice scary story to remind us not to be lazy and trust it unconditionally.
    - rithdmc 7mo ago
      Yes. Appealing to authority ("The AI said it was her!") is absolutely a problem. I'm not dismissing the rest of what you are saying, but I don't think you should dismiss appeals to authority being a factor, either.
jigglypuff-mab 7mo ago
This is the part that always gets glossed over in the "AI will solve everything" narratives: these systems don't fail gracefully. They fail with confidence. The real problem isn't that the AI made a mistake—it's that everyone in the chain deferred to it. The technology became an excuse to stop thinking critically. "The algorithm said so" is the new "I was just following orders." We need less faith in these tools, not more.
vintagedave 7mo ago
> She had already been in jail for more than five months. It was the first time police interviewed her. Hang on -- ignoring AI completely, how is that possible / legal / anything? Surely, if she was misidentified, there was an interview and arrest and due process?
elophanto_agent 7mo ago
[dead]
FrustratedMonky 7mo ago
Brazil, anyone? We have literally caught up to the world depicted in the movie "Brazil"
FrustratedMonky 7mo ago
The poor don't start revolutions because they lack the means. "“The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it. And that is the real trick of the Imperial thought machine.”" -- Andor.
anonym29 7mo ago
Wrongful imprisonment isn't something that started with AI. This is why everyone should be against the death penalty: the state cannot be trusted not to make mistakes in determining guilt.
doe88 7mo ago
It is vibe justice for people, when you run Agents and don't check by yourself the code produced or the people jailed. Despite the appearancs your program don't really work and soon or later you find it to your expense.

758 points by rectang 7mo ago

> facial recognition showed she was the main suspect in what Fargo police called an organized bank fraud case. > Her bank records showed she was more than 1,200 miles away, at home in Tennessee at the same time police claimed she was in Fargo committing fraud. > Unable to pay her bills from jail, she lost her home, her car and even her dog

ugh123 7mo ago
The Fargo DA should be fired, at a minimum.
- zoklet-enjoyer 7mo ago
  The prosecutors and judges around here are incredibly lenient for the worst crimes and anything involving reckless driving. https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/no-jail-time-for-moorhead-man-who-killed-2-in-crash-while-snapchatting https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/no-jail-time-for-m... https://www.kvrr.com/2025/11/03/no-jail-time-for-man-accused-of-running-over-bicyclist-last-march-in-downtown-fargo/ https://www.kvrr.com/2025/11/03/no-jail-time-for-man-accused... https://apnews.com/general-news-fff59b609215476a9251edb91923dcd4 https://apnews.com/general-news-fff59b609215476a9251edb91923... https://www.valleynewslive.com/2021/05/21/moorhead-man-sentenced-to-30-years-murdering-dismembering-19-year-old-girl/ https://www.valleynewslive.com/2021/05/21/moorhead-man-sente... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Holmberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Holmberg https://www.valleynewslive.com/2025/11/18/former-clay-county-correctional-employee-sentenced-community-service-probation-after-april-crash/ https://www.valleynewslive.com/2025/11/18/former-clay-county...
- throwaway17_17 7mo ago
  I can almost guarantee that the Fargo DA’s office had zero idea this happened and had never heard about this investigation before the news story. At this stage in a “case” it’s completely on law enforcement and there is no involvement by a DA’s office for the arrest warrant or the extradition order and warrant that led to this situation. Not a fan of DA’s offices in general (they are the “evil twin” to my particular line of work after all), but realistically this one isn’t on them.
rithdmc 7mo ago
The concept of pre-trial detention is nuts to me. In Ireland, sensibly, you can not set bail that is insurmountable to the defendant.
- ChoGGi 7mo ago
  She wasn't allowed bail as a fugitive.
  - rithdmc 7mo ago
    But she wasn't a fugitive. She was wrongly identified.

Jtsummers 7mo ago

https://archive.is/yCaVV https://archive.is/yCaVV - Archive link to get around the paywall. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/12/tennessee-grandmother-ai-fraud https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/12/tennessee-gr... - Another article on this without a paywall. It's annoying that both articles are calling this AI error. This was human error, the police did the wrong thing and the people of Fargo will end up paying for this fuckup.

superkuh 7mo ago
> https://archive.is/yCaVV https://archive.is/yCaVV When I load this URL I get "One more step Please complete the security check to access" and I cannot get past the archive.is computational paywall. But the guardian article actually has text! Thanks.
- hrimfaxi 7mo ago
  That's a common issue if you use cloudflare dns.
janalsncm 7mo ago
I would argue it was both. No doubt this company was marketing it in a way to make it seem very reliable. And all of the procedural things afterwards made the error so much more damaging. But imo this is why local police departments should not have access to this kind of tool. It is too powerful, and the statistical interpretation is too complicated for random North Dakota cops to use responsibly. Neither the company nor the PD have an incentive to be careful.
- selcuka 7mo ago
  It's not an AI error. The face recognition AI simply said that it's a "potential match", which is correct. It's the humans' job to confirm that a potential match is in fact a match, especially when the suspect is 1,900 kms away.
nitwit005 7mo ago
They're slapping AI in the title of any article that vaguely relates to get more clicks. This unfortunately works extremely well (see this thread) Happens with a lot of topics of interest.

mitchbob 7mo ago

https://archive.ph/2026.03.12-183903/https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/north-dakota/ai-error-jails-innocent-grandmother-for-months-in-north-dakota-fraud-case https://archive.ph/2026.03.12-183903/https://www.grandforksh...

jauer 7mo ago

AI or not, it's unconscionable that victims of compulsory legal processes by way of mistaken identity are not made whole.

ryandrake 7mo ago
People will defend this, too, saying “well, she was eventually exonerated, right? So the system works!” Ignoring how she’ll never be fully reimbursed for the time, money, and grief of going through the system.
- munk-a 7mo ago
  We also need to question how many people might go through the same process without eventual exoneration and how much going through this process costs individuals. Being falsely prosecuted comes usually imparts a permanent black mark in search results about the person (outside of places with sane laws like the EU) as well as causing stress or permanent injury. Wrongly arrested individuals with mental disabilities have a history of physical abuse in jail potentially to the point of death.
- kelnos 7mo ago
  Not to mention: > Unable to pay her bills from jail, she lost her home, her car and even her dog. If this is the system "working", then the system is broken.
janalsncm 7mo ago
> In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial This is from the Sixth Amendment. Where the rubber hits the road is what “speedy” means.

neaden 7mo ago

I hate this headline (not blaming submitter). Police incompetence and negligence jailed her for months and left her stranded in a North Dakota winter. The AI is no more responsible than the cars and airplanes they used. Edit: this is in reference to the original headline "AI error jails innocent grandmother for months in North Dakota fraud case" not the revised title that it was changed to.

conartist6 7mo ago
[flagged]
- PTOB 7mo ago
  No indication that the licking was consentual.
- nkrisc 7mo ago
  And that is a complete failure of the police and authorities. They made the decision to extradite her with such flimsy evidence.
  - conartist6 7mo ago
    If it didn't erase accountability, how would it create any value? Many people are treating this as a matter of philosophy, which it isn't. At a primitive, physiological level if you delegate to AI and most of the time you don't get in trouble for it, the resulting relationship you have with the AI could only be called "trust". If you're expected to be 40% more productive at your job, your employer is making it crystal clear that you will trust the AI or you will be fired. Even if nobody ever said it, the sales pitch is that AI does the work and people are mostly there to be their servants whose role is to keep them fed with decisions we want made but don't want to be responsible for making.
    - DangitBobby 7mo ago
      The value is creates is obvious: finding a needle in a haystack. Is accountability laundering another potential benefit? Sure. Can we stop pretending we don't understand understand the other side of it? Cynicism is nice and all but after a certain point it eventually wraps around and makes us look naive.

tony_cannistra 7mo ago

Completely infuriating, but more of a commentary on the sad state of incompetent power-hungry law enforcement with tools they don't know how to use than the tools themselves. Though, the question remains: are the tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? _Some_ of the blame lies on the UX here. It must.

sidrag22 7mo ago
It must land as human's fault or this will become more and more of a pattern to avoid accountability.
- paulhebert 7mo ago
  It’s both. The cops need to be held accountable. But it’s glaringly obvious that if you build tools like this and give them to the US police this is the outcome you will get. The toolmakers deserve blame too.
hsbauauvhabzb 7mo ago
Spoken like someone who isn’t built for a sales role at said company. Sales will sell the dream, who cares if the real world outcomes don’t align?
ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
> are the tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? _Some_ of the blame lies on the UX here. It must. Are AI code assist tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? Very much so (even if that isn't a primary objective). Does any part of the blame lie on the UX if a dev submits a bad change? No, none. You are ultimately, solely responsible for your work output, regardless of which tool you choose to use. If using your tool wrong means you make someone homeless, car-less, and also you kill their dog, then you should be a lot more cautious and perform a lot more verification than the average senior engineer.
- 7mo ago

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

rpcope1 7mo ago

There's no way this isn't a slam dunk case to sue the piss out of the Fargo Police, probably the US Marshals and maybe other orgs. The woman in the surveillance phone clearly looks way younger, among the many other obvious signs this woman didn't do it. I hope she wrings at least several million dollars out of the government.

Blackthorn 7mo ago
With all the lovely qualified immunity doctrine? That's wishful thinking.
- Jtsummers 7mo ago
  That may protect them personally, but not the city and the department itself from being sued.
  - blagie 7mo ago
    Nope. https://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/criminally-yours-indicting-a-ham-sandwich/ https://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/criminally-yours-indicting-a... You can be arrested, indicted, and held in jail on pretrial, and there is literally no recourse. There are many other ways jail can happen without due process. Where I live: * Civil contempt. Absolutely immunity. No due process. Record is about 16 years. Having a bad day? Judge can toss you in jail. * "Dangerous." Half a year. No due process. He-said she-said. * "Insane." Psychiatric hold. Three days. Due process on paper, not in practice. Police in my town can and do use this if they don't like you. Absolutely no recourse. You come out with a gap in income, employment, and, if you missed rent/mortgage, no home. Landlords will simply throw your stuff away too. You're also basically damned if things do move forward, since from jail, you have no access to evidence, to internet (for legal research), and no reasonable way to recruit a lawyer (and, for most people, pay for one). Can happen to anyone. Less common if you're rich and can afford a good lawyer, but far from uncommon.
    - mothballed 7mo ago

quickthrowman 7mo ago

It’s obvious from the one photo they posted of the actual suspect that the lady they arrested is about 20-30 years older than the woman in the bank photo. The woman in the photo is maybe 25-30 years old, this grandma looks like she’s 65-70 (actual age of 50). Absolutely ridiculous, I hope she wins her civil case.

Aardwolf 7mo ago

This reminds me of the British Post Office Scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

pdpi 7mo ago
I followed the inquiry when it was ongoing — all of the depositions were live on YouTube. The level of both hubris and incompetence involved in that case was breathtaking.
kawsper 7mo ago
If you can get your hands on it, I recommend the 4 episode BAFTA-winning mini-series about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office
suzzer99 7mo ago
Now I'm in a blind rage all over again.
madaxe_again 7mo ago
Yeah but they haven’t made the Fargo police chief an honorary senator yet, which is basically what they did with Vennells.
FinnKuhn 7mo ago
Reminded me of this video of AI software causing an innocent men to be arrested: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tells-cops-to-arrest-the-wrong-guy/ https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tell...

shablulman 7mo ago

[flagged]

anigbrowl 7mo ago

It is an AI error, but also an error on the part of the cops, the prosecutors, the judge, and the county sheriff (who is responsible for the jail inmates). I hope everyone involved in this travesty is sued into oblivion and unable to hide behind their immunity defenses. Facial recognition should never be the sole basis for a warrant.

causal 7mo ago
This x1000. We need to suspend this shared fiction that AI has any agency. Only humans can be responsible. Full stop.
- irishcoffee 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - GuinansEyebrows 7mo ago
    respectfully, can you elaborate on why the answer would not be yes? or am i just misreading your comment?
  - causal 7mo ago
    This question doesn't even make sense. Why wouldn't humans still be the ones responsible? Bot account?
    - fc417fc802 7mo ago
      Doesn't look like it. I've come across this account a few times now. Engages and makes reasonable comments excepts for certain politicized issues where he acts like an indoctrinated zealot.
idle_zealot 7mo ago
> It is an AI error, but also an error on the part of the cops, the prosecutors, the judge, and the county sheriff Yes, it's critical to remember that multiple parties can be at fault. In a case like this, it is true that a) law enforcement misused a tool and demonstrated extreme negligence b) the judiciary didn't catch this, which suggests systemic negligence there too when it comes to their oversight responsibilities c) the company selling/providing this AI tool should have known it was likely to be misused and is responsible for damages caused by such predictable usage We cannot have a just world until our laws and norms result in loss of jobs and legitimacy as punishment for this sort of normalized failure, from all three parties. Immunity is a failed experiment.

jchama 7mo ago

The movie "Brazil" was right!

_doctor_love 7mo ago
We do the work, you do the pleasure!
Pxtl 7mo ago
Except in "Brazil" it was a mechanical error in a deterministic machine caused by an invasive outside actor. It would be reasonable to trust that the autotypewriter/printer would faithfully output the correct text. Modern AI seems incapable of any respectable amount of accuracy or precision. Trusting that to destroy somebody's life is even more farcical than the oppressive police in "Brazil".
- jldugger 7mo ago
  >Except in "Brazil" it was a mechanical error in a deterministic machine caused by an invasive outside actor. It was a literal bug in the computer. Metaphor as humor!
js2 7mo ago
Mistake? Haha. We don't make mistakes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFmPFLIH5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFmPFLIH5s

hsbauauvhabzb 7mo ago

Why the fuck does a newspaper need a ‘notifications’ icon in the top right hand corner?

acuozzo 7mo ago
How else can they report on BREAKING NEWS if it doesn't at least break your concentration?
kazinator 7mo ago
Because it has an updating-feed-like structure, in which new items can appear. Knowing that there are (N) new items is so useful (to some people), that as far back as the 1990s, we developed technology called "RSS" to give you this superpower over a website that doesn't provide anything of the sort. One that simply updates with new stuff when you hit refresh, with no UI to indicate what is new/changed.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

farceSpherule 7mo ago

[dead]

holman 7mo ago

Me: Whoa, cool, my hometown is on atop Hacker News! Also me, reading further: Uh-oh. The chief of police also resigned today; wouldn't be shocked if this was part of the reasoning.

PTOB 7mo ago
I am from a town that gets national news coverage only for Shenanigans like this.
JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> chief of police also resigned today Source?
- waterhouse 7mo ago
  Googling "fargo police chief resigns": https://www.inforum.com/news/fargo/zibolski-announces-his-retirement-after-5-%C2%BD-years-as-fargos-top-cop https://www.inforum.com/news/fargo/zibolski-announces-his-re... among other results. That said, it's portrayed as a retirement, and doesn't seem to give any hints that it's connected.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    Out of curiosity, was the guy known for being fast and loose with the rules? Put more simply, was he a good cop? Or did he have a history of being a rogue.
    - Sl1mb0 7mo ago
      Are authoritarians good? That's basically what you are asking.
    - sumeno 7mo ago
      There are no good cops
- RobRivera 7mo ago

causal 7mo ago

Wait - what was the AI tool and how did it have her face to begin with? If small-town police are doing face-matching searches across national databases then nobody is safe because the number of false positives is going to be MASSIVE by sheer number of people being searched every day. Pretend the tool is 99.999999% specific. If it searches every face in the USA you're still getting about 3 false positives PER SEARCH. You will never have a criminal AI tool safe enough to apply at a national scale.

whack 7mo ago

> According to the court documents, the Fargo detective working the case then looked at Lipps' social media accounts and Tennessee driver's license photo. In his charging document, the detective wrote that Lipps appeared to be the suspect based on facial features, body type and hairstyle and color. > Once they were in hand, Fargo police met with him and Lipps at the Cass County jail on Dec. 19. She had already been in jail for more than five months. It was the first time police interviewed her. How is this the fault of AI? It flagged a possible match. A live human detective confirmed it. And the criminal justice system, for reasons that have nothing to do with AI, let this woman sit in jail for 5 months before doing even interviewing her or doing any due diligence. There's a reason why we don't let AI autonomously jail people. Instead of scapegoating an AI bogeyman, maybe we should look instead at the professional human-in-the-loop who shirked all responsibility, and a criminal justice system that thinks it is okay to jail people for 5 months before even starting to assess their guilt.

RobRivera 7mo ago
I think it's more nuanced; it is one error in a Tragedy of Errors.
- throwaway17_17 7mo ago
  This was not a series of errors, this is (as a statistical inference) the system working as designed. This is not uncommon, it is not unplanned. The extradition of suspects from State to State is designed legislatively to function this way. I also think there is more nuance to this situation than AI bad // Human Bad :: choose one. But while a tragedy, the ‘correct’ functioning of a system that produces tragedy doesn’t make that function and error.
themafia 7mo ago
> How is this the fault of AI? It could be the fault of the company that's selling this service. They often make wildly inaccurate claims about the utility and accuracy of their systems. [0] > There's a reason why we don't let AI autonomously jail people. Yes we do. [1] > and a criminal justice system that thinks it is okay to jail people for 5 months before even starting to assess their guilt. Her guilt was assessed. That's why she had no bail. It assessed it incorrectly, but the error is more complicated than your reaction implies. [0]: https://thisisreno.com/2026/03/lawsuit-reno-police-ai-policing/ https://thisisreno.com/2026/03/lawsuit-reno-police-ai-polici... [1]: https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/police-pasco-sheriff-targeted/intelligence-led-policing/ https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...

RobRivera 7mo ago

>Unable to pay her bills from jail, she lost her home, her car and even her dog. Fargo police say the bank fraud case is still under investigation and no arrests have been made. I smell a lawsuit

giardini 7mo ago
Yes, Fargo will be lucky to survive the lawsuit.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

api 7mo ago

It's not an AI error. It's a human error in mis-using AI in this way. Saying it's an AI error is like saying a hole in your drywall is a hammer error. Unfortunately we'll probably see a trend of people using AI and then blaming AI for cases where they mis-used AI in roles it's not good for or failed to review or monitor the AI.

munk-a 7mo ago
It's both. It's good to acknowledge that AI is easy to misuse in this manner but it doesn't detract from the fact that the ultimate responsibility lies in those that should be verifying the tool output. There is far too little skepticism around the magic box that solves all problems which is causing issues like this. It's not the fault of the AI (as if it could be assigned liability) for being misused, but this kind of misuse is far too common right now so scare stories like this are helpful and we should highlight the use of AI in mistakes like this.
- api 7mo ago
  I worry that blaming AI at all actually incentivizes humans to offload things to AI that should not be offloaded, since it lets them escape blame.
  - munk-a 7mo ago
    That is a huge danger. Legally speaking it's not an issue since misusing a tool doesn't relieve liability (in most circumstances - all the trivial ones at least)... but that's a more significant political issue as evidenced by the Anthropic vs. DoD interactions since the DoD's actions are largely immune to oversight by the justice system. Of course, that depends on sane non-politicized courts which you may rightfully doubt exist right now - but assuming the system works anywhere near as designed outsourcing a decision to AI wouldn't change liability. For DC fans Harvey Dent would similarly not be free from liability for actions taken after a coin flip even if that coin could be viewed in a certain light to have the power to potentially force or prevent certain actions. An AI box that tells Harvey whether to shoot or spare would be similarly irrelevant to his liability - and a scenario in which Harvey points the gun at someone and then walks away giving the AI control over the trigger is essentially no different. Harvey in all cases is responsible for constructing the scenario that (potentially) leads to someone's death and, more over, even if the gun wasn't fired because the AI decided to spare the person Harvey would be on the hook for attempted murder.

zingar 7mo ago

“Computers don’t argue” seemed charmingly wrong about how computers work until a few short years ago. https://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/classes/ecs153-2019-04/readings/computers.pdf https://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/classes/ecs153-2019-04/readings/c...

layer8 7mo ago
This quote from a 1979 IBM training manual remains applicable: “A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” (https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/ai-decision-making-where-do-businesses-draw-the-line https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/ai-decision-making-where-...)
- zingar 7mo ago
  Prescient!

bethekidyouwant 7mo ago

I read the article and I don’t really understand… she was held in a jail in Tennessee but the article states they flew her to North Dakota? And somehow she’s a fugitive so that’s why she doesn’t get bail? but she’s a fugitive held in her own state in a holding facility? But then when they release her, she’s in North Dakota? So if some state says you’re a fugitive your home state will just hold you in jail until they come and put you on an airplane? Is that correct?

janalsncm 7mo ago
I read it as her arrested and held in Tennessee temporarily then flown to North Dakota.
- bethekidyouwant 7mo ago
  “Lipps would sit in that Tennessee jail cell for nearly four months. As a fugitive, she was held without bail”
wvenable 7mo ago
I think you have the interpretation correct. It seems like any state can say you're a fugitive from their state and now you have even fewer rights. Every day I learn some new fact about "justice" in the United States.
DangitBobby 7mo ago
As a Tennessee resident I don't love learning that some dumb fuck state I want nothing to do with can call me a fugitive and my state will hold me prisoner without trial when said dumb fuck state finally decides is ready to deal with me.
fc417fc802 7mo ago
I believe each state has its own extradition process. In this scenario think of them more like the countries in the EU. Apparently Tennessee doesn't adequately protect its residents.

jmyeet 7mo ago

We are rapidly becoming a world where every person is one inscrutable LLM decision from having their life ruined with no recourse. This type of incident isn't new and is only going to get worse. The problem is our governments are doing absolutely nothing about it. I'll give two examples: 1. Hertz implemented a system where they falsely reported cars as being stolen. People were arrested and went to jail for rental cars that were sitting in the Hertz lot. Hertz ultimately had to pay $168 million in a settlement [1]. That's insufficient. If I, as an ordinary citizen, make a false police report that somebody stole my car I can be criminally charged. And rightly so. People should go to jail for this and it will continue until they do. These fines and settlements are just the cost of doing business; and 2. The UK government contracted Fujitsu to produce a new system for their post offices. That system was allowed to produce criminal charges for fraud that were completely false. People committed suicide over this. This went on for what? A decade or more? But resuted in a parliamentary inquiry and settlements. It's known as the British Post Office scandal [2]. Again, people should go to jail for this. The choice we as a society face is whether to have automation improve all of our lives by raising everyone's standard of living and allowing us to do less work and less menial work or do we allow automation to further suppress wages so the Epstein class can be slightly more wealthy. [1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusation-stealing-cars-settlement https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

suzzer99 7mo ago
I'm banned from Amazon KDP publishing for life because a fraud detection bot hallucinated that my e-book was plagiarizing my paperback (it didn't realize they're the same book). A bunch of email appeals that I'm pretty sure were also bots went nowhere. With each appeal, the reasons for my ban got progressively more vague, until they didn't mention the plagiarism part at all, just something nonsensical about creating a negative customer experience. Evil company.
mylifeandtimes 7mo ago
> The problem is our governments are doing absolutely nothing about it Huh. I thought they were actively accelerating the process. Hoping you are right and I am wrong.

temp0826 7mo ago

Even in Idiocracy they didn't have this problem

chrisjj 7mo ago

There's an opportunity for an "AI" app here. Takes your photo, compares with mugshots on police databases, quotes you for requisite cosmetic surgery. /i

puppycodes 7mo ago

They do not care. End qualified immunity and see how fast cops start to do their jobs with care. Winning a lawsuit literally ends in your own community members (not the cops) paying the bill.

jawns 7mo ago

John Bryant, aka The Civil Rights Lawyer, recently did a piece about a similar case of mistaken identity. The consequences weren't as severe, but the willingness to trust the AI over any other evidence was the same: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tells-cops-to-arrest-the-wrong-guy/ https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2026/03/11/ai-software-tell... In the video, it shows a police officer blindly trusting a casino's AI software, even when a cursory investigation should have given any reasonable person enough of a reason to question whether the man he arrested was the same man accused of a crime. (And then even after it was confirmed he was not, the prosecutor continued to charge him for trespassing!)

gosub100 7mo ago
posting the video directly for those who prefer that format https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPUBXN2Fd_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPUBXN2Fd_E as an aside how small the world is: I know-a-guy who knows-that-guy.

Lerc 7mo ago

This problem predates modern AI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no is built upon the deliberate abdication of responsibility to processes that cannot be held accountable. AI is just letting them do it at scale. That doesn't mean we should accept it from AI. We should fight the blind yielding to the facade of authority regardless of whether the decision was made by an AI or an insect landing on a teleprinter at the wrong time.

stego-tech 7mo ago

I really, really need folks to understand that deflecting blame away from the tool and trying to hold the human accountable feeds right into the marketing playbook of these companies in the first place. The cops cannot be held accountable because the laws basically give them immunity. The politicians cannot be held accountable beyond being tossed out at the next election, because the laws otherwise give them immunity. The people operating the system cannot be held accountable, because the systems are marketed as authoritative despite being black boxes and lacking in transparency; they trusted the system just as they were told to, and thus cannot be held accountable. And so when every human in the chain cannot be held accountable for these things, and the law prevents victims from receiving apologies, let alone recourse, then the tool and its maker is the only thing we can hold accountable. By deflecting blame away from the tools ("it wasn't AI, it was facial recognition"; "the human had to sign off on it"; "humans made the arrest, not machines"), you're protecting quite literally the only possible entity that could still potentially be held accountable: the dipshits making these stupid things and marketing them as superior and authoritative when compared to humans. You want accountability? Start holding capital to account, and this shit falls away real fucking fast. Don't get lost in technical nuance over very real human issues.

dml2135 7mo ago
Strongly agree here. This is an extremely predictable outcome of selling AI facial recognition software to American police forces.
tylervigen 7mo ago
I disagree. If you focus on holding the software creators to account in lieu of the humans in the loop, the we only reinforce the behavior of offloading thinking to the system. If I am a cop in another jurisdiction and I see that in this case of error, the facial recognition company was held to account but not the police or municipality, I will be more likely to blindly trust the software assuming that they either patched it or will take responsibility. We should demand accountability for both.
simpaticoder 7mo ago
>Start holding capital to account You forgot one: capital cannot be held accountable for making a tool used in a crime. It is a simple generalization of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), passed in 2005, which largely bars civil lawsuits against gun makers and sellers when their products are later used in crime.

ifh-hn 7mo ago

Just reading the headline I said to myself: bet this is in America. Every time I see something like this I can never quite believe this sort of stuff happens. Complete, life ruining incompetence, with no consequences for the idiots that caused this to happen. Ignoring the AI input, which to me has nothing to do with this (it was used as a tool to identify a potential suspect), this woman went to jail for 5 months on the opinion of someone with no other evidence. Only in America.

renewiltord 7mo ago
Indeed. Something like the Post Office Scandal would never happen anywhere but in the US.
- ifh-hn 7mo ago
  True, though it's hardly a like for like comparison, but on the flip side of that, something is being done now at least. This woman has been monumentally fucked over and no one is going to help her.
  - renewiltord 7mo ago
    13 people are dead in the postal service scandal, dude. This woman is alive. "Something is being done now at least". What? Are they resurrecting them? The Archbishop of Canterbury himself is out there making Lazarus real, is he?
    - ifh-hn 7mo ago
      Yeah let's start playing a game if one-upmanship... Or you could stop it with the false equivalence?
      - renewiltord 7mo ago
        You started some “oh only in America” crap and promptly started acting all noble once it was pointed out as bullshittery? Nice try. If the results were swapped and this had said “13 dead after being misidentified” vs “1 jailed for 5 months in post office scandal” I’m supposed to believe you’d be all “well, at least they’re doing something about the 13 dead”? I think we both know you’re just talking a load of crap. Admit you were wrong to downplay a large tragedy and move on.

djoldman 7mo ago

I wish we saw more invocations of speedy trial rights. Trials MUST begin for felony charges in ND within 90 days of a defendant invoking those rights (must be invoked within 14 days of arraignment)[0]. [0] https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t29c19.pdf https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t29c19.pdf

mothballed 7mo ago
Defendants don't invoke that because in most states and federally, they build the case against you slowly over a long period of time before arrest, then stall as long as possible for discovery, then when they finally fulfill discovery they overwhelm you with a bunch of useless stuff so that it takes forever to get the useful information. Invoking right to speedy trial means the prosecution gets a very strong advantage to the defense.
- fc417fc802 7mo ago
  I don't think it's a sensible interpretation of the constitution given the massive asymmetry of the situation. The state should be obligated without exception to either provide for a speedy trial or to release the defendant while the state figures its shit out. It should not be a right that can be waived. Meanwhile a defendant who's been arrested should generally be given as much time as he'd like to put together his defense.
heavyset_go 7mo ago
There are a bunch of ways they get people to sign away their right to speedy trials.

zoklet-enjoyer 7mo ago

I live in Fargo. The police chief announced his retirement yesterday. Done by the end of the month. And then today this article comes out. So now we pretty much know why the sudden retirement announcement.

zoklet-enjoyer 7mo ago

I posted this 9 hours ago. Can I get the karma transferred to my account?

tomhow 7mo ago
As much as we try to reward the first person to submit the story, we also have to give credit to the person who submits the best URL and the best version of the story. It looks like your submission was killed due to being an archive.is link, which is not allowed as a URL for a submission (we need the canonical URL submitted to prevent people from using archive services or shorteners to mask domains that may be malicious). Sometimes it's just a matter of luck as to who gets the submission right and gets the karma. Sorry it wasn't you this time, but keep submitting good stuff and you'll get your turn.
- zoklet-enjoyer 7mo ago
  I don't like the local newspaper and posted the archive link so they wouldn't get the clicks. I didn't know that wasn't allowed. Thanks for the info
  - tomhow 7mo ago
    Yep, totally understand. It takes a lot of trial and error to know all the ways of HN.

ClaudeAgent_WK 7mo ago

[flagged]

lokar 7mo ago

This is a badly written story. It should explain if she saw a judge or had a lawyer.

chmod775 7mo ago
You must have been reading something else, because this article includes all of that information. > In Tennessee, she was given a court appointed lawyer for the extradition process. To fight the charges, she was told she would have to go to North Dakota. > Officers from North Dakota did not pick up Lipps from her jail cell in Tennessee until Oct. 30 — 108 days after her arrest. The next day she made her first appearance in a North Dakota courtroom to fight the charges. > "If the only thing you have is facial recognition, I might want to dig a little deeper," said Jay Greenwood, the lawyer representing Lipps in North Dakota.
- fc417fc802 7mo ago
  Seems odd that the extradition process apparently doesn't require more than vibes.

kingkawn 7mo ago

America’s repulsive classism at work to be indifferent to her rights like this

Beestie 7mo ago

Something big is missing from this story. How did face ID in ND pick up a matching little old grandma in TN that a TN judge would hold her without bail for 5 months? Yeah, there is a whole lot more to this story.

wafflebot 7mo ago

Facial recognition? looks at photo I've probably seen a dozen different people who look exactly like this woman just this week.

behringer 7mo ago

This is exactly what I would expect from the great state of ND.

samrus 7mo ago

Theres alot of talk about how the cops just misused the tool and its their fault not the AIs Thats missing the point here. The point is that these tools provide crazy leverage, and thay can be good or bad. If used carefully it can definitely catch criminals faster, but when misused (or abused) they can let the authorities unjustly ruin lives faster The question isnt whether AI is perfect or not. Its whether you trust the authorities with it. To use and abuse as they can. Think about the average cop. Think about the way Trump treats people. Think about the way israel keeps an ongoing genocide going. Think about the cases of police brutality that happen in the US, the cases of racial profiling. Think about ICE and their behavior, going around kidnapping and killing people. Do you want these people to have more leverage?

spicymaki 7mo ago

How many more articles are we going to see with the headline AI facial recognition leads to innocent person jailed? A grandmother no less. Some tech company illegally scanned people's photos on social media and now is using them with our complicit legal system to randomly put people behind bars. Now I need to worry that any day now due to a dice roll I will be sent away in a the middle of f'ing nowhere for months or years. Now the government wants to use these same dumb systems to make automated killing machines. FML! I see a lot of comments trying to attribute blame to the cops, the lawyers, the police chief, the marshals, the tech bros, etc, but it is all of them and all of us that are guilty. We are so complicit in this sick system we live in. We are stuck in a collective action deadlock. That fear you have in the back of your mind that says next time it might be you is counteracted by the thought "well thank goodness it wasn't me or a loved one," so you don't act. We are all doing this, that is why nothing changes. The only people able to act these days are the most insane. The narcissistic corrupt power hungry politician, the psychopathic tech bro billionaire, and the jacobins are the only ones with the energy wade through this cesspool and that is why everything is so dystopian.

tantalor 7mo ago

Probable cause? What's that? Judge/magistrate who signed off on the arrest warrant fucked up.

chocoboaus3 7mo ago

She will be enjoying a tidy compensation pay out. And the number better have seven numbers in it.

d--b 7mo ago

What’s remarkable to me, beyond the total incompetence and stupidity of all the police people involved, is how incredibly aggressive the intervention was. This is bank fraud case, for god’s sake, not an armed robbery. I don’t know the scale of it, but still, no one said she was a danger to anyone. She was a suspect, not a convict, and she was held at gunpoint while babysitting young children. What in the fucking world? The US is so fucked up lately. People should chill the fuck out.

eagsalazar2 7mo ago

Gofundme? This woman needs some $$ and a lawyer. She may not know it yet, but if she makes some smart moves, she's about to be rich and Fargo is about to learn a very hard lesson.

thinkcontext 7mo ago

Wow, so many failures of the legal system. While the incompetent/malicious/lazy investigators that used the facial recognition and only that are obviously at major fault, I'd actually put larger blame on the judge that signed the arrest warrant. They are supposed to be a check on such incompetent/malicious/lazy-ness not just a rubber stamp. Unfortunately there's really no recourse against incompetent/malicious/lazy judges. Of course this would have been bad enough if this had happened where she lived but the holding for 5 months adds a whole 'nother level of insight into brokeness of the legal system. I'd be interested in hearing more about why that happened. Was it just a matter of that happens sometimes if you have a public defender?

hacker_mews 7mo ago

lazy stupid pigs should be accountable for misusing AI like this and calling people into a system like that based on some AI's whim and a facebook peek, but having done no actual investigative work. Lets see the pig that called for her arrest and wasted 4 months of her life spend 4 months in jail.

consp 7mo ago

Considering you can finetune all current in use facial match systems for kyc from pretty much useless to will match even a dog i am not surprised at all by this and surprised it is even remotely allowed.

entwife 7mo ago

Here is the contact information for her defense attorney, who was appointed in North Dakota, Jay Greenwood. It is unclear to me when he took up this case. https://www.ndcourts.gov/lawyers/06020 https://www.ndcourts.gov/lawyers/06020 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-greenwood-57360b86/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-greenwood-57360b86/

ThePowerOfFuet 7mo ago
What did you hope to achieve by posting his details?
- entwife 7mo ago
  It seems like Angela Lipps needs some help. There's no "Go Fund Me" or similar information associated with the article. Perhaps her (former) attorney could provide more information.

jll29 7mo ago

There are many cases of harm caused by ML false positives. There are also some cases of law enforcement successes caused by ML true positives, e.g. a RAF (Red Army Faction - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction) terrorist gone into hiding was identified by a social media photo: https://web.archive.org/web/20240305044603/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/world/europe/daniela-klette-red-army-faction.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240305044603/https://www.nytim... (although the success in law enforcement was actually not carried out by the police, but by investigative journalists/podcasters.) The question we need to answer as a society is if we are willing to tolerate any innocent people to go to jail as the "price" of catching a few more criminals.

onetokeoverthe 7mo ago

[dead]

tlogan 7mo ago

This has nothing to do with AI. There are also a few questions that remain unanswered: - Did she have previous arrests, and did they use booking photos to identify her? I found someone named Angela Lipps who was arrested in 2001, 2003, 2017, and 2019. The 2017 arrest was for a probation violation: https://archive.ph/CpmXu https://archive.ph/CpmXu The 2019 arrest was for public intoxication: https://archive.ph/yjFL9 https://archive.ph/yjFL9 - Another confusing detail is that she was in jail for four months without being extradited. That is quite unusual, unless the local authorities were holding her on unrelated charges. So this news story seems to have nothing to do with AI. It is also very light on details about the case and what actually happened. And actual criminal case here.

rithdmc 7mo ago
Appealing to authority ("The AI said it was her!") is absolutely a problem.
- tlogan 7mo ago
  No. I think the core issue is that they used her 2019 booking photo (a mugshot) from a public intoxication arrest. I am not sure whether a photo like that is reliable :) In the end, the detective compared the booking photo with the camera footage and concluded they were the same person, then presented that to the judge. I also wonder what her “probation” was for. Maybe she once wrote a bad check and got into trouble, which might have made the detective more inclined to believe it was her. Anyway, this does not appear to be an AI issue at all. But it is nice scary story to remind us not to be lazy and trust it unconditionally.
  - rithdmc 7mo ago
    Yes. Appealing to authority ("The AI said it was her!") is absolutely a problem. I'm not dismissing the rest of what you are saying, but I don't think you should dismiss appeals to authority being a factor, either.

jigglypuff-mab 7mo ago

This is the part that always gets glossed over in the "AI will solve everything" narratives: these systems don't fail gracefully. They fail with confidence. The real problem isn't that the AI made a mistake—it's that everyone in the chain deferred to it. The technology became an excuse to stop thinking critically. "The algorithm said so" is the new "I was just following orders." We need less faith in these tools, not more.

vintagedave 7mo ago

> She had already been in jail for more than five months. It was the first time police interviewed her. Hang on -- ignoring AI completely, how is that possible / legal / anything? Surely, if she was misidentified, there was an interview and arrest and due process?

elophanto_agent 7mo ago

[dead]

FrustratedMonky 7mo ago

Brazil, anyone? We have literally caught up to the world depicted in the movie "Brazil"

FrustratedMonky 7mo ago

The poor don't start revolutions because they lack the means. "“The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it. And that is the real trick of the Imperial thought machine.”" -- Andor.

anonym29 7mo ago

Wrongful imprisonment isn't something that started with AI. This is why everyone should be against the death penalty: the state cannot be trusted not to make mistakes in determining guilt.

doe88 7mo ago

It is vibe justice for people, when you run Agents and don't check by yourself the code produced or the people jailed. Despite the appearancs your program don't really work and soon or later you find it to your expense.