There is enormous variability in how hard a tool is to use correctly, how likely it is to go wrong, and how severe the consequences are. AI has a wide range on all those variables because its use cases vary so widely compared to a hammer.
The use case here is police facial recognition. Not hitting nails. The parent wasn't saying "AI is a liability" with no context.
When somebody uses a tool to hurt somebody, they need to be held accountable. If I smack you with a hammer, that needs to be prosecuted. Using AI is no different.
The problem here is incidental to the tool; it was done by the cops and therefore nobody will be held accountable.
Systems are also a tool. Whoever institutes and helps build the system that systematically results in harm is also responsible.
That would be the vendors, the system planners, and the institutions that greenlit this. It would also include the larger financial tech circle that is trying to drive large scale AI adoption. Like Peter Thiel, who sees technology as an "alternative to politics". I.e. a way to circumvent democracy [1]
Nonsense. The manufacturer, distributor, and vendor of a hammer are not liable for its misuse. We already litigated and then legislated this regarding guns in the US.
As much as I detest Clearview and Thiel the fault for this incident falls squarely on the justice system.
Your first paragraph conflates the system with the tool. Please at least parse what I wrote before you respond.
You are also conflating legality and morality. The US gun industry being good at lobbying has no bearing on whether an industry that enables mass school shootings is accountable or not. I mean it clearly is. Just compare gun deaths in the US to any civilized nation and you'll see that gun control is the moral and sane approach.
A hammer/gun is not the same as the wider hammer/gun industrial system, and the societal systems it is a part of. The justice system is a part of that. So even though you say you disagree, somehow you still agree?
> Your first paragraph conflates the system with the tool.
No, it responds to the claim you made. You asserted that systems are also tools and attributed fault on that basis. Perhaps at least reread your own comment before condescending.
> You are also conflating legality and morality.
Also incorrect. I understood you to be claiming tool vendors to bear both legal and moral responsibility; perhaps I misunderstood. Regardless, my position is that tool vendors bear neither of those more or less unconditionally. The only way a tool vendor can become responsible in any sense (IMO) is if they knowingly and intentionally facilitate a particular outcome. The manufacturer of a hammer, gun, or AI facial recognition system is never at fault for what the user does with it unless they actively encouraged that particular use.
This tool, however, is specifically built for mass surveillance. It serves no other purpose. The tool is broken, and everybody knows it. The tool makers are at least as guilty as those who use it.
The tool is unethical, not broken. And unfortunately remains legal for the time being. To that end it's a social or political problem that can be fixed.
Yes. But doing the investigation negates much of the incentive for using AI.
Look for similar to play out elsewhere --- using unreliable tools for decision making is not a good, responsible business plan. And lawyers are just waiting to press the point.
In this case it sounds as though AI could have been used to generate preliminary leads. When someone calls a tip line with information, police don’t just take their word for it, they investigate it. They know that tips they receive may be incorrect. They should have done the exact same here, but they didn’t.
I’m very opposed to AI in general, but this one is clearly human failure.
The noteworthy AI angle is the undeserved credence police gave to AI information. But that is ultimately their failure; they should be investigating all information they receive.
The failure starts with tool vendors who market these statistical/probabilistic pattern searchers as "intelligent". The Fargo police failed to fully evaluate these marketing claims before applying them to their work.
So in the same way that the failure rolled down hill, liability needs to roll back up.
The article says that the Fargo police claimed to have done "additional investigative steps independent of AI". (Perhaps they're lying, or did a poor job because they thought the extra steps were a formality.)
Given the actual outcome it’s hard to imagine what they actually did. It would be less embarrassing for them if they had said they did no additional investigating.
It's not even the right question, really. If they found some crazy coincidence that genuinely seemed to corroborate the identification, it's still not OK that this woman was dragged across the country. They rightly identify that the initial AI scan was wrong to do even if everything that followed was by the book. Our law enforcement processes were developed in a context where this kind of error was much harder because there was no routine way to scan every person in the United States for people who look like your suspect.
Look, I'm generally considered AI's most vociferous detractor.
But...
> there is no way to tell if you are using it "correctly".
This simply isn't true, at least in cases like this.
I know common sense isn't really all that common, but why would you give more credence to an untested tool than an untested crack-addled human informant?
The entire point of the informant, or the AI in this instance, is to generate leads. Which subsequently need to be checked.
We will find out. But relying on AI is likely to cost the city of Fargo in one way or another. They say they have already stopped using AI and returned to good old fashioned human investigation.
What kind of outcome results from misuse? Clearly a hammer's misuse has very little in common with a global, hivemind network used in high-stake campaigns.
Now, if I misused a hammer and it hurt everyone's thumb in my country, then maybe what you said would have some merit.
Otherwise, I'd say it's an extremely lazy argument
AFAIK the actual cause for our high incarceration rate is that we have longer sentences. The conviction rate, for example, as compared to the UK is similar.
The use case here is police facial recognition. Not hitting nails. The parent wasn't saying "AI is a liability" with no context.