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I have a face that looks like a lot of other people. I have a name that 500+ men use in the world. I don't do anything bad or criminal, but I could be mistaken

I have a face that looks like a lot of other people. I have a name that 500+ men use in the world. I don't do anything bad or criminal, but I could be mistaken for a man who matches my face. Nature creates patterns, and sometimes you get a Mr. Potato Head like me with a common face.

jacquesm 7mo ago
Absolutely everybody has face doubles. Identikit got pretty close and there weren't that many bits in there and quite a few of them were hairstyles and that's a choice, not genetics. How many head shapes, noses, eyes, mouths and ears can there be? A few million? Then everybody has a few thousand doubles. 100 Million? Still 80.
- tartoran 7mo ago
  That's why AI should not be used for identification alone, it's unreliable.
  - garciasn 7mo ago
    Correct; NIST recommended (~10 years ago) they be used together: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1721355115 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1721355115
  - lewdev 7mo ago
    There was a case where someone's finger prints matched someone who was later found to have an alibi and not be there. So even finger prints are unreliable.
    - tartoran 7mo ago
      Wow, had no idea. Was it a partial fingerprint match? I wonder if 2 people exist that match exactly all 5 fingerprints, seems close to impossible to me.
      - eesmith 7mo ago
        A couple of famous cases are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_McKie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_McKie and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield . The definition of "match" is complicated, and not just for issues like partial fingerprints and blurring. The FBI says they had a "100 percent match" in the Mayfield case. The judge says this assessment was "fabricated and concocted by the FBI and DOJ". Or from https://www.science.org/content/article/forensic-experts-biased-scientists-claims-spark-outrage https://www.science.org/content/article/forensic-experts-bia... published in 2022: "When police retrieve a print from a crime scene, they consult an FBI computer database containing millions of fingerprints and receive several possible matches, in order of the most likely possibilities. Dror found that experts were likely to pick “matches” near the top of the list even after he had scrambled their order, perhaps because of the subconscious tendency to overly trust computer technology. “People would say to me fingerprints don’t lie,” Dror says. “And I would say yes, but it’s also true that fingerprints don’t speak. It’s the human examiner who makes the judgment, and humans are fallible.”"
        jacquesm 7mo ago
        The problem with these things is that the police are on the one hand of course doing their best to nail the actual criminals but on the other that when they get it wrong lives are ruined and there are zero repercussions. If you have an otherwise functioning legal system without plea bargaining and other 'efficiencies' then you at least stand a chance to fight the system. But here that is not the case and the combination of those two is extremely dangerous.
        eesmith 7mo ago
        The Shirley McKie case was in Scotland, which doesn't have US-style plea bargaining. McKie accepted £750,000 in full settlement. There was a public inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint_Inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint_Inquiry .
- technothrasher 7mo ago
  > Absolutely everybody has face doubles. I once had a waiter in a restaurant that I'd never been to before swear he'd seen me there many times, and when I denied it he was backed up by some of the other staff. Creepy, to say the least. Afterward I realized I should have given him my phone number and told him to call me next time "I" came in, so that I could meet my doppelganger.
  - jacquesm 7mo ago
    I keep telling people about the movie the 13th floor. If you don't know it yet have a look, it is not something I assign any real world value to but it is one of the more interesting 'many worlds' stories.
awwaiid 7mo ago
Yes -- I know at least 3 Orion Blasters.
hamburglar 7mo ago
I wonder if any other men have your face and your name.

jacquesm 7mo ago

Absolutely everybody has face doubles. Identikit got pretty close and there weren't that many bits in there and quite a few of them were hairstyles and that's a choice, not genetics. How many head shapes, noses, eyes, mouths and ears can there be? A few million? Then everybody has a few thousand doubles. 100 Million? Still 80.

tartoran 7mo ago
That's why AI should not be used for identification alone, it's unreliable.
- garciasn 7mo ago
  Correct; NIST recommended (~10 years ago) they be used together: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1721355115 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1721355115
- lewdev 7mo ago
  There was a case where someone's finger prints matched someone who was later found to have an alibi and not be there. So even finger prints are unreliable.
  - tartoran 7mo ago
    Wow, had no idea. Was it a partial fingerprint match? I wonder if 2 people exist that match exactly all 5 fingerprints, seems close to impossible to me.
    - eesmith 7mo ago
      A couple of famous cases are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_McKie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_McKie and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield . The definition of "match" is complicated, and not just for issues like partial fingerprints and blurring. The FBI says they had a "100 percent match" in the Mayfield case. The judge says this assessment was "fabricated and concocted by the FBI and DOJ". Or from https://www.science.org/content/article/forensic-experts-biased-scientists-claims-spark-outrage https://www.science.org/content/article/forensic-experts-bia... published in 2022: "When police retrieve a print from a crime scene, they consult an FBI computer database containing millions of fingerprints and receive several possible matches, in order of the most likely possibilities. Dror found that experts were likely to pick “matches” near the top of the list even after he had scrambled their order, perhaps because of the subconscious tendency to overly trust computer technology. “People would say to me fingerprints don’t lie,” Dror says. “And I would say yes, but it’s also true that fingerprints don’t speak. It’s the human examiner who makes the judgment, and humans are fallible.”"
      - jacquesm 7mo ago
        The problem with these things is that the police are on the one hand of course doing their best to nail the actual criminals but on the other that when they get it wrong lives are ruined and there are zero repercussions. If you have an otherwise functioning legal system without plea bargaining and other 'efficiencies' then you at least stand a chance to fight the system. But here that is not the case and the combination of those two is extremely dangerous.
        eesmith 7mo ago
        The Shirley McKie case was in Scotland, which doesn't have US-style plea bargaining. McKie accepted £750,000 in full settlement. There was a public inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint_Inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint_Inquiry .
technothrasher 7mo ago
> Absolutely everybody has face doubles. I once had a waiter in a restaurant that I'd never been to before swear he'd seen me there many times, and when I denied it he was backed up by some of the other staff. Creepy, to say the least. Afterward I realized I should have given him my phone number and told him to call me next time "I" came in, so that I could meet my doppelganger.
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  I keep telling people about the movie the 13th floor. If you don't know it yet have a look, it is not something I assign any real world value to but it is one of the more interesting 'many worlds' stories.

awwaiid 7mo ago

Yes -- I know at least 3 Orion Blasters.

hamburglar 7mo ago

I wonder if any other men have your face and your name.