Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 211 posts

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

#191

Post by Sebguer »

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…

Suggest you try doing some rock climbing and then seeing how well touch ID works on your phone.

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

#192

Post by jrochkind1 »

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.…

It sounds like they reclassified it after the police said "Gee, are you sure you don't have a gunshot? in a slightly different location?"

I wonder how much of "AI" introduced in court (or for a warrant) involves some element of individual human attention though... They just call it "AI" without qualification until they get caught (if even then).

Would it be better though if it had been purely the output of a machine learning algorithm? (Which after all is not infallible). In that case, the guy probably would have been convicted on that alone...

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

#193

Post by NoPicklez »

Crontab wrote: post #9

Coming next year: "A man spent a year in jail on child pornography charge that hinged on disputed Apple CSAM evidence".

You might be surprised to know that many other major tech companies have already been using the same CSAM technology for the last two years and how many of these situations have you heard of? I can't think of any.

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

#194

Post by exporectomy »

giantg2 wrote: post #44
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.

I generally agree, but wouldn't necessarily say a lot of forensics is junk science. The science is generally sound (procedures and theory). Usually it's the prosecutors that present the forensics in a way that misrepresents what the results actually mean. Or lab techs make mistakes or perform misconduct (How to Fix a Drug Scandal on Netflix is interesting).

As soon as the analysts making judgments about the evidence are in communication with the prosecutors or police, it's junk science. You wouldn't do a psychology or medical experiment without at least single blinding, and certainly not with the experimenter telling the subjects what result they want!

Look at this damming quote - "ShotSpotter strongly insisted it had not improperly altered any data to favor the police's case". That shows they don't have a system in place to prevent data being altered or to prevent themselves knowing what the police want, so all their findings are suspect.

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

#195

Post by hervature »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #163
hervature wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The canonical example here are p-values. Completely valid and accepted interpretation which will forever be abused. In the medical realm, we see the same things with false-positive and false-negative rates causing massive confusion. An even more recent example is COVID vaccine efficacy. I would take the bet that 90% of the general population could not give the accurate definition of what the definition of…

Just curious about the downvotes. 1. Was it he said statistics lie sometimes? 2. Or, questioned 90% efficacy of some Covid vaccines?

I think you are getting downvoted because (hopefully) people recognize I didn't question their efficacy. Just that 90% of people know what that means.

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

#196

Post by exporectomy »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #104
giantg2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hopefully cases like this will eventually stop the system being used in court." Maybe it will stop this system from being used in court, but new ones will take its place. It would be great if we could change the structure of the justice system to prevent these types of issues from popping up again. I have no idea what a solution would look like.

If you did that then everyone on here would be ranting about old judges and a luddite system instead

You don't have to ban new technology, just impose standards on it.

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

#197

Post by kodah »

aeturnum wrote: post #101
jdjd6 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just fyi - Police are generally quite well paid for the area they live in. For example, in Alameda (the county I live in) it's common for police to make over $450,000 a year[1]. Also, while police to have a more-dangerous-than-average job[2] (and face unique risks - they are probably the most likely profession to die of a gunshot on the job), there are much more dangerous jobs[3]. So if you have been excusing police…

It sounds like what's common is that your police do a lot of overtime: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2019/alameda-coun...

From your source (for the rank of Sergeant):

    Regular pay: $139,197.60

    Overtime pay: $160,477.73

    Other pay: $13,292.65

    Total pay: $312,967.98

    Benefits: $127,240.58

    Total pay & benefits: $440,208.56
Based on Alameda county, here's some "living wage" stats: https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06001

The way I interpret that is that they're paid with the idea that they'll have two kids or a Sergeant is a "Manager" (Management $124,884, from the living wage source). I'm curious what the reason for overtime is, but I suspect that it's staffing requirements.

Debating pay to danger ratios is a pretty fruitless effort. People don't get paid for danger.

See: https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Special-and-Incentive-Pa....

TLDR: "Service members will receive $7.50 for each day they are on duty in an IDP area up to the maximum monthly rate of $225."

Moreover, I was a 4 year Corporal living in the barracks with the equivalent of two deployments under my belt raking in about $20k a year.

To my knowledge, this is a fairly standard rate. Side note, we used to crack all kinds of jokes around, "I guess I earned my 7.50 today."

I think what people do get paid on frequently is the availability of people who can and will do the job. A limited and capable talent pool will always make more, especially when demand is high.

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

#198

Post by UncleEntity »

aeturnum wrote: post #178
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.

> it would be absurd to account for extra income to say they make what you're saying. It's not what I say they make, it's what the public records say they make. You can go look yourself. For example, from my first link, Sergeant Stuart Eugene Barnes made $125,380.76 in salary and $172,330.17 in overtime. I think it fair to say that's compensation from their job as a police officer.

Oakland officers seem to be able to significantly rack up the overtime these days.

https://oaklandnorth.net/2021/04/28/oakland-police-overtime-...

Kind of makes sense though, most officers start there then move to a safer place once they get enough experience. Remember seeing billboards advertising $80k starting salary 10+ years ago while driving through town.

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

#199

Post by wpietri »

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.

For those interested, I recommend reading about "Clever Hans", the horse that could supposedly do math: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

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

#200

Post by shadilay »

emodendroket wrote: post #168
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time I hear about people who talk about AI are average joes, ignorant journalists, generic business analysts, and upper management that don't know anything about programming. I wish I could point to these people and say "look at video game AI, we can't even make those without it cheating or following a routine to simulate human playstyles. What makes you think we can do that in real life without doing the sa…

Video games are a bad example because it’s pretty feasible to make an AI that would win every time.

Only in very simple games. There's a reason that there's not more AI multiplayer grinding bots.
Post reply on HN