Technology @beehaw.org Synecdoche @feddit.de 1 yr. ago

This AI Watches Millions Of Cars Daily And Tells Cops If You’re Driving Like A Criminal

www.forbes.com This AI Watches Millions Of Cars Daily And Tells Cops If You’re Driving Like A Criminal

Artificial intelligence is helping American cops look for “suspicious” patterns of movement using license plate databases.

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1 yr. ago

[HN] AI Watches Millions of Cars and Tells Cops If You’re Driving Like a Criminal

www.forbes.com /sites/thomasbrewster/2023/07/17/license-plate-reader-ai-criminal/

55 comments

Great! Automated discrimination against the poor
- How long before we find out it always flags certain makes and models as criminals?
  
  it will just hand out random DUIs to RAM owners based on statistics and reckless driving tickets to black altimas with tinted windows and bedazzled plate frames.
  
  That would be great.
  
  Imagine an AI that’s morally blind, pulling over expensive cars because the owners are more likely to break traffic laws knowing they can afford the fine.
- do 'the poor' all drive really bad?
  
  We've already got numerous examples of how these ai models and face recognition models tend to have biases or are fed data that accidentally has a racial bias. Its not a stretch of the imagination to see how this can go wrong.
  
  No, but any automated system can be used to punish people who cannot afford to fight it.
  
  No, but they're disproportionately affected by fines. For rich people a fine is just the cost of a privilege.
  
  Exception being something like Finnish speeding fines which are income dependent.
  
  Not that I’m aware of.
  But we know the criminal justice system currently has biases. If the data the “AI” is trained on was affected by these biases, or others that we don’t realize, then it will produce biased results.
Wonder how long before these things start automatically mailing you a ticket because they calculated your speed between camera stops and determined you were going 3-5mph over the limit on the highway and if the "well it was used to catch a criminal" crowd will be as accepting of this technology then
- The section control technology youre refering to is already being used in some countries, and they ofcourse automatically send you your speeding tickets. 3-5 mph would only be a marginal fine tho, if there even would be a fine at all. I dont understand though how that would be any different from normal speed checks, except for the fact that it might be more accurate.
  
  The problem in the US is they can't give moving violations without someone there to testify. Usually that's the officer. If the officer doesn't show up, the ticket is tossed. I'm not really sure why they can give redlight tickets (unclear if that held up or not), but some of it had to do with if it was something that affected your license, or was a "violation" instead of a crime like a parking ticket.
- I mean, they can't prove a sufficiently large gravitational wave didn't hit you between the two checkpoints, causing you to travel through space relatively quickly.
Oh no, the A.I. identified someone as a drug trafficker, and the police pulled that person over on suspicion of being a drug trafficker, and found out that he was indeed a drug trafficker, and now he's upset he got caught by a robot dragnet.

I don't think drugs should be criminalized, but are we supposed to be upset that A.I. is going to finally help parse data and solve crimes?
- This is literally 1984. We shouldn't applaud when they propose a surveillance state
  
  Hyperbole.
  
  McDonalds and White Castle have already begun using ALPR to tailor drive-through experiences, detecting returning customers and using past orders to guide them through the ordering process
  
  Yeah you're right, helping people order lunch is literally 1984.
- This time they where right because it was indeed a drugsdealer but just look at what it took to get this data
  
  “in this case it was used to examine the driving patterns of anyone passing one of Westchester County’s 480 cameras over a two-year period.”
  
  “the AI determined that Zayas’ car was on a journey typical of a drug trafficker. According to a Department of Justice prosecutor filing, it made nine trips from Massachusetts to different parts of New York between October 2020 and August 2021 following routes known to be used by narcotics pushers and for conspicuously short stays.”
  
  So apparently making long trips with short stays is now enough proof to be searched by police. And if they can extrapolate that into “this guys a dealer” how much other data and possible extrapolations got caught in the crossfire off all those cameras. How long till someone in power decides selling some of that info to corporations is a good way to line state/government/own pockets?
  
  Maybe we should place cameras in everyones house and listening bugs in every single phone? Criminality solved? Or hear me out, the real criminals will adept, find new and novel ways while the common citizen is kept in line with fines for even the smallest offense.
  
  Then the police state will want to escalate the tools again, even more suppressing technology. Good thing were spend so much resources continuing to bully normal citizens into generating cash flow from fines. Money and resources well spend?
  
  Or maybe the world needs some actually intelligent people that can find the root causes of criminal behavior and restructure society to improve well being and chances so people want to belong and maintain it rather then feeling like the system of opportunities is rigged against them so they should cheat to survive.
- Acknowledging this is a dragnet, a practice generally considered unconstitutional since the 1950s, actually illustrates pretty well why people are upset about it. Even if it would result in more easy prosecutions for cops, it doesn’t change that it’s mass surveillance and an unconstitutional practice.
  
  I guess that will be up to the courts to decide, not us.
- This pattern might indicate drugs. Or adultery, which isn't illegal. It could be a straight job such as a mobile MRI technician. It might be a landlord.
  
  In short this is likely to affect innocent people. It's like if you've got a name that happens to be on the no fly list, right? Your travel is fucked and you haven't done anything wrong.
- I think people get worried about concepts like pre-crime with this.
  
  Worry, what...that you'll get pulled over for suspicions while being innocent, and then the cops would be forced to find out you're innocent?
  
  Yeah I can see that being inconvenient to downright dangerous depending on the cop, personally I think it has the potential to do more good than bad.
  
  It's just a shame the police have such a hard on for drugs when there's so much worse stuff going on out there.
I thought cops already had a system for that called "driving while black."
Oh neat, this knowledge will now passively motivate me so hard to act normal that it's gonna flag me every time!
Wake me when the AI can identify people who are going to commit crimes before they commit the crimes.

Edit: it’s a precog reference from Minority Report, btw.
- Why would you need to be woken up if you have no intent of committing a crime?
  
  Poor guy needs an alarm clock or something.
- Better wake up then. Because they are using such systems in the US and they are used to harass innocent people.
Wait so if you drive like a crazy person after a few beers and a good ol'smash up with the lads then you are suddenly a criminal?
- I do my best driving after a few beers.
  
  Granted, that's mostly because I have a much easier time hitting pedestrians when I'm sober.

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