<story><title>A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence</title><url>https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/22/in_brief_ai/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>helsinkiandrew</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s scary that prosecutors thought that the ShotSpotter evidence is suitable for a court.  It&amp;#x27;s amazing technology that can help police get to a crime scene quickly but is far too easy to spoof or get the wrong answer due to reflections and other sounds etc.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully cases like this will eventually stop the system being used in court.</text></item><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>The article says that employees of the AI company (ShotSpotter) manually reviewed and classified the sounds as gunshots:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 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.&lt;p&gt;So the AI didn’t even make the call. The staff did, manually. I assume that means the actual audio is available and entered into evidence?&lt;p&gt;If humans are making the call then blaming AI seems like a stretch. That’s almost like blaming the motion detection algorithms for triggering video recordings that were later reviewed by humans. It’s still humans reviewing the recordings and making decisions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smt88</author><text>The only people saying ShotSpotter is amazing technology are ShotSpotter&amp;#x27;s PR team.&lt;p&gt;By all other accounts, it doesn&amp;#x27;t work at all and is losing contracts.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;...a study of Chicago police data found that over a nearly 22-month period ending in mid-April, almost 90% of ShotSpotter alerts didn’t result in officers reporting evidence of shots fired or of any gun crime.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;[1]&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;In four years, police have made two arrests while responding to a ShotSpotter activation. Lt. Shawn Takeuchi, an SDPD spokesman, could only confirm that one of those arrests was directly related to the activation, but declined to give more information on both.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;[2]&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;apnews.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;chicago-police-crime-shootings-be9e44796bd7e6e3c94108c5e3905ede&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;apnews.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;chicago-police-crime-shootings-be...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.voiceofsandiego.org&amp;#x2F;topics&amp;#x2F;public-safety&amp;#x2F;shotspotter-sensors-send-sdpd-officers-to-false-alarms-more-often-than-advertised&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.voiceofsandiego.org&amp;#x2F;topics&amp;#x2F;public-safety&amp;#x2F;shotspo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>A man spent a year in jail on murder charge that hinged on disputed AI evidence</title><url>https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/22/in_brief_ai/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>helsinkiandrew</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s scary that prosecutors thought that the ShotSpotter evidence is suitable for a court.  It&amp;#x27;s amazing technology that can help police get to a crime scene quickly but is far too easy to spoof or get the wrong answer due to reflections and other sounds etc.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully cases like this will eventually stop the system being used in court.</text></item><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>The article says that employees of the AI company (ShotSpotter) manually reviewed and classified the sounds as gunshots:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 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.&lt;p&gt;So the AI didn’t even make the call. The staff did, manually. I assume that means the actual audio is available and entered into evidence?&lt;p&gt;If humans are making the call then blaming AI seems like a stretch. That’s almost like blaming the motion detection algorithms for triggering video recordings that were later reviewed by humans. It’s still humans reviewing the recordings and making decisions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SamoyedFurFluff</author><text>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.</text></comment>