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A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

theregister.com

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Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#91

Post by JackFr »

jwilk wrote: post #16
JackFr wrote: post #12

“It's said that in May last year, Williams was driving through Chicago one night hoping to buy some cigarettes.” Ah yes, I remember hearing that a lot growing up. Editors, do your job!

What do you mean?

The sentence I quoted makes no sense in a news article.

- The use of the passive “It’s said” has no business in a news item. Who said it?

- Idiomatically “It’s said” is typically used to identify a bit of folk wisdom, not a particular incident.

It’s terrible writing and it should appall a decent editor. This isn’t a blog post or a comment, it’s an item in an English language professional online publication. Do better.

Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#92

Post by theelous3 »

sdenton4 wrote: post #70
stefan_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point? These systems invariably turn out to not be any sort of AI at all, but sales people ready to make a call any way their customer (police) wants it made. Later it's presented as AI to a jury. It's basically the same scam as lots of forensics, junk science to get a desired result.

Most forensic science is junk. That said, human in the loop ML can be extremely useful. Surfacing possible positive examples for human review and/or cutting down 'obvious' negatives can multiply the productivity of human reviewers in many contexts.

> Most forensic science is junk.

I'm ignorant on the topic. Got links?

Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#93

Post by giantg2 »

BoorishBears wrote: post #89
tzs wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fingerprinting is junk science. How then do you explain the success of Touch ID on Apple devices and the equivalent systems on other phones and tablets? Random people can't just walk up and unlock a Touch ID device with their fingerprint, which suggests that fingerprints are in fact a very good way to tell people apart. Yes, it is possible to make a fake fingerprint that Touch ID will not be able to distinguish fro…

Because other surfaces are not a purpose built sensor designed to detect the features of a finger then repeatedly trained with a specific set of finger scans? Like are you joking? Saying TouchID validates fingerprinting is like saying MRI machines validate psychics.

Are you joking?

It seems you two have a different idea of what is being discussed. The underlying fundamentals of finger prints are solid. The part that can make them ineffective is when they are using insufficiently tested tools or matching on too few points. And of course misrepresentating what a match actually means and how it pertains to the case.

Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#94

Post by MichaelGroves »

indymike wrote: post #25
nend wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a failure by software? The software categorized the sound as a fire work.

> How is this a failure by software? The outcome - a guy being charged with a crime using bogus evidence is the story. The software may have been right, but the people who operate the software didn't trust it. Regardless, the story is trying to point out we might not be ready to put our faith in AI for criminal prosecutions at this time.

If shotspotter had not existed, I think this man would have still been charged with the murder. It seems beyond dispute that the victim was shot in the car of the accused. The case against him was seemingly lost for two reasons: shotspotter's fuckery, and the police not bothering to collect other evidence in a timely matter. It should not have been hard for the police to determine whether there was a gunshot fired in the car, or whether the passenger was struck by a bullet fired from outside the car. There was really no reason for shotspotter to play a role in this case, it could have been cut and dry but they went and muddled the whole thing up with their janky tech.

Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#95

Post by DubiousPusher »

bryan0 wrote: post #85
dylan604 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What am I missing? The fact that some of the evidence the police used to say who did what where was manufactured by the company.

The headline is: > A man spent a year in jail on a murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence. But after the reading the article, the evidence seemed irrelevant? Maybe the headline should have been: > AI evidence was manually reclassified after human review in murder case

Incorrect

> Prosecutors said ShotSpotter picked up a gunshot sound where Williams was seen on surveillance camera footage in his car, putting it all forward as proof that Williams shot Herring right there and then.

The police used the altered location of the shot to imply that the defendant's story about what happened wasn't true. Which was that another person in another var at a different location did the shooting.

They used the altered location data alongside video evidence to imply the defendant and the victim were alone at the shot location and therefore the defendant was the only possible suspect.

Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#96

Post by amanaplanacanal »

jes wrote: post #18
tyingq wrote: post #8

It's interesting to me that there's no working process to introduce/accept new types of science in court. Polygraphs aren't allowed (though the police still find ways to use it to bully people). So, there's some process. But you still see stories about subsets of fiber, hair, arson, fingerprint, dna, etc, science, that shouldn't have been brought to court.

The legal system will, over time, also have to accept and adapt to the idea that free will is an illusion. (See “neuro-law” for more information on this.)

The idea that the people who run the legal system have the free will to change it is also an illusion.

Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#98

Post by LinuxBender »

rvba wrote: post #24

Wow there are microphones used to detect gunshots in Chicago? I remember seeing such technology in a relatively obscure cyberpunk comic book when I was a kid, but I never thought this would be legal. Do the microphones record conversations too? Can the government spy on its own citizens? I guess some secret court ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intell... ) allowed it?

There are LED street lights in San Diego California that do just that. They have cameras and microphones. The microphones are used for Machine Learning of what people say. [1] There are a handful of other cities deploying these. It is a clever way to deploy CCTV much like what the UK has but without drawing much attention to it.

[1] - https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/san-diego-faces-lawsuit...

Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#99

Post by klyrs »

tzs wrote: post #80
wyager wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fingerprinting is junk science. Polygraphs are junk science. Tons of things that have been or are admissible as evidence are junk science.

> Fingerprinting is junk science. How then do you explain the success of Touch ID on Apple devices and the equivalent systems on other phones and tablets? Random people can't just walk up and unlock a Touch ID device with their fingerprint, which suggests that fingerprints are in fact a very good way to tell people apart. Yes, it is possible to make a fake fingerprint that Touch ID will not be able to distinguish fro…

Sorry, but the security required for your Apple devices is less exacting than the demands of justice.

late edit: how often do people try to unlock your unattended apple device?

Re: A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence

#100

Post by jdjd6 »

stefan_ wrote: post #6
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

The article says that employees of the AI company (ShotSpotter) manually reviewed and classified the sounds as gunshots: > records showed that ShotSpotter actually initially picked up what sounded like a firework a mile away, and this was later reclassified by ShotSpotter staff to be a gunshot at the intersection where and when Williams was seen on camera. So the AI didn’t even make the call. The staff did, manually.…

That's the point? These systems invariably turn out to not be any sort of AI at all, but sales people ready to make a call any way their customer (police) wants it made. Later it's presented as AI to a jury. It's basically the same scam as lots of forensics, junk science to get a desired result.

It really boggles my mind how desperate people are to try and include and blame the police for everything.

>sales people ready to make a call any way their customer (police) wants it made.

You really believe people signed up for a dangerous amd thankless job with high liability and low pay so they can feverishly conspire to have this guy arrested?

Edit: This place is becoming reddit. Someone posting links which dont substantiate their statements gets upvoted, meanwhile my replies questioning this get hit by a downvote brigade.

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