Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon • Hacker News Board

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#441

Post by burnt-resistor » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 10:48 PM UTC

It wasn't sour cream and onion and didn't contain cash, so it's super sus.

But really this is typical of cop overreaction with escalation and ego rather than calm, legal, and reasonable investigation. Karens may SWAT people they don't like, but it's police officers who must use reasonableness and restraint to defend the vestiges of their impartiality and community confidence based on asking questions and gathering evidence in a legal and appropriate manner rather than rushing to conclusions. Case in point: The NYC rough false arrest of a father in front of his kid to retrieve his mis-delivered package where the egomaniacal bully cop aggressively lectures a guy for his own mistake to cover his own ego while blaming the victim: https://youtu.be/LXd-4HueHYE

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#442

Post by shemtay » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 12:01 AM UTC

neuralRiot wrote: post #167

akoboldfrying wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make them pay money for false positives instead of direct support and counselling. Agreed. > This technology is not ready for production No one wants stuff like this to happen, but nearly all technologies have risks. I don't consider that a single false positive outweighs all of its benefits; it would depend on the rates of false and true positives, and the (subjective) value of each (both high in this case, though…

I think I’ve said this too many times already but the core problem here and with the “AI craze” is that nobody realy wants to solve problems, what they want is a marketable product and AI seems to be the magic wrench that fits in all the nuts and since most of the people doesn’t really knows how it works and what are its limitations the happily buy the “magic dust”.

teenagers carrying and using guns in baltimore actually is a real problem

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#443

Post by nomel » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:42 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #356

nomel wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide the quote from the story that says which of those is the case.

> Police later showed him the AI-captured image that triggered the alert. The crumpled Doritos bag in his pocket had been mistaken for a gun. That quote sorta suggests that the police got the alert, looked at the photo, and was like "yeah, that could be a gun, let's go". Still dumb.

If the police actually thought it was a gun, what would be the "smart" thing to do?

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#444

Post by nomel » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:44 AM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #340

nomel wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If security sees someone carrying a gun in surveillance video, on a gun free campus, and policy verify it, then yes, that's justified, by all aspects of the law. There are countless examples of surveillance of illegal activity resulting in police action. Are you suggesting it's not?

Nobody saw a gun in a video. Nobody even saw something that looked like a gun. A chip bag, at most, is going to produce a bulge. No reasonable human is going to look at a kid with a random bulge in their pocket and assume gun. Otherwise we might as well start sending our kids to school naked; this is the kind of paranoia that brought us the McMartin Preschool nonsense.

Please provide the quote from the article, or link that lets you know, so confidently, that it wasn't passed through human review.

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#445

Post by nomel » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:45 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #358

nomel wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If security sees someone carrying a gun in surveillance video, on a gun free campus, and policy verify it, then yes, that's justified, by all aspects of the law. There are countless examples of surveillance of illegal activity resulting in police action. Are you suggesting it's not?

They didn't see that, though. They saw a kid with a bulge over their pants pocket, suggesting that something was in the pocket. The idea that any kind of algorithm can accurately predict that an amorphous pocket bulge is a gun is just bonkers stupid. (Ok, ok, with thin, skin-tight, light-colored pants, maybe -- maybe -- it could work. But if it mistook a crumpled-up Doritos bag as a gun, clearly that was not the case…

I don't see any of this in the above article. Could you provide the link with that information in it?

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#446

Post by evanelias » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 2:50 AM UTC

shemtay wrote: post #442

neuralRiot wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I’ve said this too many times already but the core problem here and with the “AI craze” is that nobody realy wants to solve problems, what they want is a marketable product and AI seems to be the magic wrench that fits in all the nuts and since most of the people doesn’t really knows how it works and what are its limitations the happily buy the “magic dust”.

teenagers carrying and using guns in baltimore actually is a real problem

Sure, but this school is in the county, outside city limits. In my experience, what passes for "sketchy" in Essex MD is roughly "random dude selling pit beef out of a barrel in front of his house", i.e. fairly benign. But it's admittedly been a long while since I lived in Baltimore.

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#447

Post by parineum » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 2:51 AM UTC

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #420

parineum wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even when Boeing knowingly caused the deaths Since corporations aren't people, Boeing didn't know anything. Did someone at Boeing have all of that knowledge?

> Since corporations aren't people, Boeing didn't know anything. you have to recognize that a statement like this means that decision-makers at boeing either knew or were negligent in their duties .

Which is a hell of a thing to say without evidence.

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#448

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 9:37 AM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #434

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the proportion of gun-carrying to shooting in schools?

Well guns aren’t allowed in schools at all. It’s a felony. So if your point is that the ratio is low, that’s only because the denominator is way too big.

No point, a question.

I'd suspect kids would take guns to 'be cool', show friends, make threats without intention to actually use them. Also, intention to harm that wasn't followed through; intention to defend themselves if threatened; other reasons?

Probably no sound stats, but I'm curious about it, so asked.

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#449

Post by fgbarben » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 12:02 PM UTC

xp84 wrote: post #252

proee wrote: post #7

Walking through TSA scanners, I always get that unnerving feeling I will get pulled aside. 50% of the time they flag my cargo pants because of the zipper pockets - There is nothing in them but the scanner doesn't like them. Now we get the privilege of walking by AI security cameras placed in random locations, hoping they don't flag us. There's a ton of money to be made with this kind of global frisking, so lots of pr…

Get Precheck or global entry. I only do a scanner every 5 years or so when I get pulled at random for it. Otherwise it's metal detector only. Unless your zippers have such chunky metal that they set that off you'll be fine. My belt and watch don't. Note: Precheck is incredibly quick and easy to get; and GE is time consuming and annoying, but has its benefits if you travel internationallly. Both give the same benefits…

The brownshirts will never get my money.

Re: Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon

#450

Post by potato3732842 » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:55 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #448

janalsncm wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well guns aren’t allowed in schools at all. It’s a felony. So if your point is that the ratio is low, that’s only because the denominator is way too big.

No point, a question. I'd suspect kids would take guns to 'be cool', show friends, make threats without intention to actually use them. Also, intention to harm that wasn't followed through; intention to defend themselves if threatened; other reasons? Probably no sound stats, but I'm curious about it, so asked.

Considering the slices of the socioeconomic ladder mostly involved here, I'd bet that "it won't grow legs if it's on me" dwarfs all other motives for bringing guns to school.