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

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

#201

Post by Dylan16807 »

stelcodes wrote: post #111
leephillips wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your distress at the state of the justice system, but it doesn’t make sense to say that someone was on death row without having been convicted. The article you link to explains that his convictions were overturned. Although I would never rely on information in a Wikipedia article, you did link to it, so presumably you find it credible.

Every time he was “convicted”, the prosecution was found to be in blatant violation of laws on appeal. They intimidated witnesses, kept black people off the jury, and more. So no, he was never rightfully convicted! The prosecution broke so many laws, way more than Curtis Flowers ever did! And they just did it over and over again for 20 years. None of them have faced any consequences. They effectively imprisoned an in…

The prosecution breaking the law doesn't mean the trial didn't happen. "rightful conviction" and "conviction" are very different things.

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

#202

Post by freeopinion »

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…

I'm curious if you think that an accused person could be used to setup a Touch ID, then have the prints collected at a crime scene used to unlock the device.

Do you think the forensic prints would meet the standard required by Touch ID?

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

#203

Post by freeopinion »

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.

> human in the loop ML can be extremely useful

Human-in-the-loop ML can be extremely useful in avoiding obvious mistakes.

Human-in-the-loop ML can be extremely useful in fabricating desired results.

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

#204

Post by freeopinion »

DaftDank wrote: post #162
jdjd6 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are supervisors and elected officials making 300k (after all benefits considered) in an area with a high cost of living equal to "police commonly make above 300k"? Second, it would be absurd to account for extra income to say they make what you're saying. That's like saying a cashier at walmart works three jobs to make an average of 70k a year, so cashiers at walmart commonly make 70k a year.

I can't remember which department, but I remember the local SF/Bay news many years ago talking about some supervisor at that department somehow making $1.5 million the year before (or something insane like that.) They explained how it was all possible, which to me seemed like he had just been with them for so long, he knew exactly the optimal way to play the system and exploit all the loopholes in it. As for your sec…

Many of these tricks are not secret. They are commonly known and coordinated among emergency service personnel. They cooperate to take vacation, etc. in ways that will maximize the overtime of coworkers. That overtime can then be recycled into time-and-a-half leave that will reciprocate into the maximum overtime for the first party.

An administration that squashes all overtime faces extreme wrath. They can be cutting employees' take home in half. I and plenty of others have seen people lose their houses or suffer other financial crumbles when the expectation of built-in pay far beyond their published salaries were cut off. You can argue that it is foolish to depend on such extra pay and I would agree. But when that significant extra has been their reality for all 10 years of their employment with the department, you can see how they would just plan it into their future finances.

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

#205

Post by lenkite »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #19
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, drug dogs are still a thing even though we know they tend to respond to owners desires regardless of if there’s drugs present.

Wow i have never heard of that. Curious to see a link/article on the issue, if you can provide.

"Drug-sniffing dogs in traffic stops often wrong"

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2011-01-06-ct-met...

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

#206

Post by scoopertrooper »

dylan604 wrote: post #82
scoopertrooper wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your slippery slope includes the abolition of pre-trial discovery, it's a very slippery slope indeed.

When does slope become cliff?

Did you just use a slippery slope argument to justify slippery slope arguments? Impressive. How deep can we go?

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

#207

Post by jjk166 »

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 you use a hammer to drive a nail, and the nail goes in exactly as intended, but then the carpenter rips out the nail, how is that a failure of the hammer?

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

#208

Post by openasocket »

giantg2 wrote: post #184
shkkmo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all forensics disciplins are created equal and some of them, such as hair forensics, are definitely junk science.

How is hair analysis junk science? Maybe you just mean that people misuse the facts to come to incorrect conclusions? It's only supposed to be used to include or exclude someone, and based on the numbers/probabilities it's generally only useful for excluding someone. Of course that's not how most prosecutors use it...

Hair analysis, as in looking at two hair samples under a microscope and determining if they are a match, is definitely junk science. The FBI has specifically acknowledged this, dozens of cases have been overturned because subsequent genetic testing has shown hair samples did not, in fact, match. In at least one case someone was convicted based almost entirely on hair sample analysis, and later DNS testing showed that not only was the hair not a match, the hair found at the crime scene belonged to a dog. https://www.nemannlawoffices.com/blog/fbi-forensics-convicte...

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

#209

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

bagacrap wrote: post #187
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany and Austria you get compensated for your time incarcerated if found innocent. So as to basically "fine" the government for not having speedy trials.

that sounds fair except not great that it's just penalizing the taxpayer, not anyone in government

We need to quit thinking about "penalizing the taxpayer" type of mentality. It's the governments income. You don't get to act like a taxpayer for all the gas you buy or interest you pay in, but suddenly when money funnels to the government your money and how it's spent matters. The government is just another corporate entity. Not like you get the money they tax back anyway.

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

#210

Post by sdenton4 »

freeopinion wrote: post #203
sdenton4 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> human in the loop ML can be extremely useful Human-in-the-loop ML can be extremely useful in avoiding obvious mistakes. Human-in-the-loop ML can be extremely useful in fabricating desired results.

Not quite sure what point you're trying to make here...

Misusing science is a problem regardless of whether ML is the science in question. It's /already/ a big problem within criminal justice (polygraphs, psychopath tests, etc).

Avoiding 'obvious' mistakes is helpful in reducing the amount of work human raters/evaluators need to do. Automatically classifying 90% of data and leaving 10% for humans can reduce human workloads by 90%, or enable new use-cases where doing 100% of the work simply wasn't feasible. Using ML in this way doesn't make it 'fake AI.'

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