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French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

theguardian.com

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Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#11

Post by l5870uoo9y »

You can without a doubt take this even further and train it to detect all sorts felonies. The felonies will mainly be simple ones that perpetrated by the lower and middle class. Builder working without a bill? Crosscheck income with an country wide average and their spending history. Nailed. Waitresses working without paying tax? Crosscheck size of establishment with formally employees. Nailed.

Of course, this not only has privacy issues but also one of social justice. Illegal employment, or what is called "sort arbejde" in Danish or Schwarzarbeit in German if want a compounded word, allows builders en masse to make a decent wage and is widespread, in Denmark at least.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#13

Post by Tade0 »

> As property taxes are based on the rental value of the property, improvements mean an increase in taxes. A typical pool of 30 sq metres would be taxed at about an extra €200 a year.

Sounds like the tax authority just DDoSed itself with this, because processing all these changes is going to take some time.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#14

Post by andybak »

denhaus wrote: post #2

legitimately the shittiest, most boring, and most unimaginatively dystopian use for AI I have ever seen.

It's people that can afford pools on their property. They can afford to own property. I'm not shedding many tears here.

If even a tiny amount of the money recovered improves the lot of the vulnerable then I find it hard to put this at the top of my "this year's dystopian" list.

Your comment however might go on my own "most unimaginative definition of dystopian" list.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#15

Post by matsemann »

denhaus wrote: post #2

legitimately the shittiest, most boring, and most unimaginatively dystopian use for AI I have ever seen.

AI making normal people lose their jobs, accumulating even more wealth at the top: Good

AI making affluent people pay their share of taxes: Dystopian.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#16

Post by nottorp »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #9

"AI" Imagine being charged 24 million euros ( https://www.01net.com/actualites/piscines-non-declarees-la-t... ) by Capgemini, known for having fucked up every single public -private partnership in France so they can just run OpenCV on satellite pictures, while being paid for a THIRTY PERCENT ERROR RATE

Scheme to be extended across the country after trial in nine departments led to extra €10m in tax receipts

So far it cost 2.5 times what it made.

But tbh i don't think the 30% error rate is relevant. How many photos did it analyze and how many did it select for human review?

Unless ... google being involved ... there was no human review.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#18

Post by freddie_mercury »

Tade0 wrote: post #13

> As property taxes are based on the rental value of the property, improvements mean an increase in taxes. A typical pool of 30 sq metres would be taxed at about an extra €200 a year. Sounds like the tax authority just DDoSed itself with this, because processing all these changes is going to take some time.

The article is almost a year old and France had no issues processing this, so there was no Denial of Service at all.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#19

Post by im3w1l »

pyrale wrote: post #10
denhaus wrote: post #2

legitimately the shittiest, most boring, and most unimaginatively dystopian use for AI I have ever seen.

Why? Taxes is what sends children to school, pays for hospitals and funds the infrastructure everyone uses. People love to hear about AI breakthroughs that could transform education or health, why should they not be happy about this? I have many doubts about the actual technical solution, but I wouldn't discard the work because it's for taxation purpose.

The power balance between state and individual is quite delicate and everything that changes it makes people uneasy. Most people want a situation where law and order is more or less upheld, but the state is otherwise unable to precisely know or control how people live.

Re: French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)

#20

Post by raverbashing »

l5870uoo9y wrote: post #11

You can without a doubt take this even further and train it to detect all sorts felonies. The felonies will mainly be simple ones that perpetrated by the lower and middle class. Builder working without a bill? Crosscheck income with an country wide average and their spending history. Nailed. Waitresses working without paying tax? Crosscheck size of establishment with formally employees. Nailed. Of course, this not on…

A lot of this is already done (incl. IRS in the US) and you don't need "AI" for it, though it is the current buzzword

I'll abstain from discussing the legal and societal aspects of such tighter enforcement though I might say every enforcement needs some kind of "wiggle room"

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