[HN Gopher] Using Advanced Camera Tech and AI to Target the Poor
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Using Advanced Camera Tech and AI to Target the Poor
Author : dxs
Score : 111 points
Date : 2023-05-20 14:05 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| reaperducer wrote:
| Original reporting:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/16/surveilla...
| 3np wrote:
| OP is really just a polarized rewrite of this, with some
| inacurracies sprinkled in and dystopic illsutration instead of
| footage and photos.
|
| @dang, can link be replaced with this?
| nixass wrote:
| Discussion is already underway based on OP's link, why change
| it? Submit your own thread and continue there if you want
| ronsor wrote:
| Petapixel is obviously trying to get more people outraged
| over AI-anything, as they do repeatedly [0].
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35715432
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The article claims that the evidence security cameras reduces
| crime is debatable, but the linked article is merely whether the
| presence of cameras reduces crime. A more important, direct
| effect of the cameras would be helping evict criminals from the
| housing, which surely would have an effect on the amount of crime
| happening there.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It is pretty safe to say that cameras do not _prevent_ crime by
| themselves; they are so common that everyone has gotten used to
| them, reducing the deterrent effect; and the response times
| from watching CCTV are too long to prevent anything in the
| moment.
|
| Preventing crime has more to do with social and architectural
| decisions, like expanding visibility, removing chokepoints, and
| promoting more activity near a given space. The problem is that
| you can't demolish all the public housing built poorly in the
| US and replace it at a reasonable cost.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I agree completely, but another good way of preventing crime
| is to remove habitual criminals from the space. Cameras can
| help do that by providing evidence of their crimes for their
| removal.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Cameras have existed in public housing for multiple decades
| at this point. If the theory is that this is a process that
| works, it's not effective or scalable enough given that
| public housing remains dangerous.
|
| The new thing is that AI makes all of this less tedious,
| but I'm skeptical this will put a serious dent in the
| problem.
| incone123 wrote:
| I used to live in a development that was going downhill with
| residents dumping garbage and so on. The management company were
| too cheap to put any cameras in, never mind an AI.
| tpoacher wrote:
| Prof. Pete Fussey from the University of Essex (where I also
| work) has some really insightful talks on the topic of
| surveillance. Here is a nice videolecture he gave that I randomly
| happened to watch recently. It's 25mins long and really good food
| for thought; it's a great introduction to the topic.
|
| https://panopto.essex.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=a58...
|
| (thankfully this one is open-access ... hopefully sharing on HN
| won't bring the university's server down, hahah)
| whitemary wrote:
| [flagged]
| iinnPP wrote:
| "One resident was recorded spitting in the hallway"
|
| Im sure this wasn't the only thing used for the eviction but if
| it was that is clearly over the line. With that being said, the
| behavior is disgusting and if I was in a building dealing with
| such, I wouldn't feel bad to see them go.
|
| Having lived in such a situation before, I could find globs of
| spit, blood, and who knows what else on elevator buttons, door
| handles, mailboxes, and entry buzzers. It's disgusting and
| incredibly unhealthy. It's also discrimination towards people
| with germ related phobias or disorders.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| You can still figure out who spit on something without a
| dragnet of ai and facial recognition being applied to every
| resident. That way you don't have to hassle a blind lady to
| formally explain why someone bringing her groceries is using
| her key fob.
|
| To find the guy who spits, you can just rewind the tape.
| cookieperson wrote:
| It is overzealous. Imagine if every minor crime or social
| faux pas you've ever committed was logged, stored to disk,
| and accessible to various for profit 3rd parties. Little bit
| dystopian. Middle and upper class people can pay the fines
| and fees. It's the lower class who end up in prison or
| homeless.
| milsorgen wrote:
| I can't recall the last minor crime I committed. Granted I
| know I must of committed crimes recently due to the state
| of our labyrinthine system. I don't even jaywalk when I'm
| out on my 1AM nights walks. I have trouble relating with
| that sentiment, its not hard to be a good member of your
| community. As for every faux pas? Well I came to terms with
| being recorded the moment I step out the door. I would of
| gladly fought with anyone to stop the encroachment of video
| surveillance but sadly few cared and now its too late. 3rd
| parties have probably been using most of that data for
| years by now. I am taking this article a big heap of salt,
| we need more accountability in this world not less. Now
| maybe this isn't the right way to go about it but what's
| the alternative? We dismantled much of our communities and
| families, stigmatized shaming people and all the natural
| human things that keep people following best practices in
| life have been dismantled or have fallen apart.
| Avshalom wrote:
| >I know I must of committed crimes recently due to the
| state of our labyrinthine system
|
| Well hey good news, the cameras are automated now and
| they know all the crimes.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You've never rolled though a stop? Drove 28 in a 25?
|
| You say you walk at 1AM. Why? Maybe your pattern of walks
| aligns with when some Nextdoor.com Karen thinks there's a
| pervert lurking around scaring her cats.
| sokoloff wrote:
| How many people are spitting in the hallway of the place
| they live or visit?
|
| I certainly _could_ pay any fine that would be assessed,
| because that fine would be assessed zero times.
|
| If you're in a living situation where neighbors are
| regularly spitting in the common areas, I can understand
| the appeal of a system that would bring that to an end.
| cookieperson wrote:
| How many kids played ding ding ditch as a kid? How many
| teenagers stole a pack of gum as a dare? How many drunk
| college kids peed on a tree in a public place? Should
| that kid get a citation? Should that kid end up in small
| claims court? Should that student be a sex offender and
| serve time as such? We all agree these things are crimes
| and people shouldn't do them. But people do stupid crap
| all the time and US already incarcerates more of it's
| people than any other country in the world. It's a
| slippery slope in my mind.
| pdntspa wrote:
| Citation, maybe not, but in a lot of situations those
| kids need to get their shit kicked in, or some other kind
| of punishment. Youthful rebellion isn't a license to piss
| off the people around you
| waboremo wrote:
| Threatening unnecessary violence is another strike
| against your social credit score.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Being intentionally annoyed by kids isn't a license to
| "kick their shit in" and is far more antisocial than any
| of the completely nonviolent nuisance cited that I've
| ever seen or had happen.
|
| Don't steal gum, but more than that, don't commit felony
| assault.
| cookieperson wrote:
| Can't reply to the post below me. But yea I am not on the
| side of child abuse ie "kicking a child's shit in" or for
| mass incarceration or mass surveillance...
| mathisfun123 wrote:
| > I certainly could pay any fine that would be assessed,
| because that fine would be assessed zero times.
|
| ah the "if you have nothing to hide" approach.
|
| people that occupy this perspective never withstand the
| level of scrutiny they espouse - i am 100% certain that
| if i observed you for a ~1 week i would find punishable
| offenses. and then you would wilt and say "well i didn't
| mean _those_ things ". yes that's the point - systems
| like this are aimed at a particular category of offenses
| and blind to another.
| iinnPP wrote:
| The poster only mentioned spitting, not every little
| offense.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The article mentioned a case of loaning someone their key
| fob to get groceries for them. The offender in question
| was a blind person being helped by an assistant.
|
| So, yes, EVERY little thing.
| mathisfun123 wrote:
| this is just more of the same thing that i'm pointing out
| - people who claim these kinds of retorts refrains have
| no imagination and/or have never been the victims of
| similar systems. yes, trust me (and absolutely everyone
| that rages against this), they do and will and must
| inevitably target every little offense.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| This example is chosen because it's gross. Nobody is pro-
| spitting.
|
| It's less "ok" to people if you say "A public venue is
| banning an individual because she works for a company our
| company dislikes."
|
| If you're in this space at all, you should be concerned
| about this. If you live in a major area, hundreds of
| locations are running LPR on your car or have cameras
| capable of facial recognition. As more entities start
| exchanging that data, your movements are available to
| anyone willing to pay.
|
| Once you open the door to this, it's easy to go awful
| things in the name of quality of life. Perhaps your
| landlord doesn't like your ethnicity or religion, won't
| rent to folks who've spent time in certain places, for
| example.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "Perhaps your landlord doesn't like your ethnicity or
| religion"
|
| At least in the US, this type of discrimination is
| illegal.
| bsder wrote:
| Good luck proving it. And the poor don't even have the
| money to access the system to get redress.
|
| How many groups in tech are a single ethnicity or
| religion managed by that same ethnicity or religion? I
| bet the number isn't small.
| tiku wrote:
| You know how much work that is? Especially over a timespan of
| 3 days for example. If people would behave this all wouldn't
| be necessary.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Not that hard at all. Check on noon of each day to see if
| the offending loogie is present or not. Now your search is
| down to 24 hours where the loogie was not present on noon
| of one day and was present on noon of the next. Check at
| midnight, go forward or back six hours as necessary... 3
| hours... 1.5 hours. Pretty simple as ping as we're not
| using a linear access system like vhs, which we aren't
| since it's 2023 and scrubbing through 72 hours of video is
| trivial.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| _They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the
| folks in the United States would do the few simple things
| they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would
| take care of themselves._
|
| --Calvin Coolidge
| Avshalom wrote:
| and now he's evicted -from public housing- so what do you think
| the next move here is? My guess is he'll bounce back and forth
| from jail to the street until he dies.
|
| feels like an extra janitor would be a better solution here
| rather than a surveillance state.
| iinnPP wrote:
| The easiest solution is not to spit. It's a no brainer, anti-
| action. It requires no effort, instead it is less effort.
|
| Your guess is probably not correct either.
|
| The cameras may literally save lives. I form this opinion
| from experience, do you?
|
| The cameras being there sucks. Dying is worse.
|
| Using the footage for petty offenses sucks and shouldn't
| happen. I just don't think the example invokes any kind of
| feeling of injustice as seemingly intended. And wanted to
| point it out that I didn't believe it was the only reason.
|
| Having said all that, a janitor only fixes the one problem.
| It also introduces new potential problems. A nosy janitor can
| do a lot more harm to disadvantaged people than a camera. And
| 24 hour janitorial is more like 4 janitors, not 1. Who is
| paying for them?
|
| Just don't spit, especially indoors. Simple.
| waboremo wrote:
| If the easiest action is not to spit, why did he continue
| spitting?
|
| Let's move on from spitting, as it's a dull example, but
| into behaviors in general. How do you get someone to stop
| doing something? Punishment does not work. Telling someone
| not to do something only encourages them to do it even
| more. So, like most other solutions, we can instead work
| off incentivizing positive action. We saw this with
| smokers, you give them a designated area, a place to put
| out their smokes, alongside restrictions like not smoking
| indoors, and you've got a winning combination. Likewise, we
| need thorough solutions to behavioral problems, not "easy"
| ones. Easy ones don't last long. Habits remain.
|
| If cameras save lives, why do you not have a camera in
| every room in your home?
| iinnPP wrote:
| I can't tell you why this specific person spits, nor can
| anyone. I can only state that as a person who has lived
| in social housing, cameras were what made it possible.
| Even with these cameras, the building I was in was
| responsible for a whopping 50% of homicides in my city
| for the ~year I was there. Having AI do the work and
| catching this garbage behavior would have been welcomed
| by many residents, and unwelcomed by the people spitting
| on the elevator buttons, doorknobs, entry system, and
| mailboxes. Which was a daily occurrence.
|
| Punishment does work. It works to get those people out
| and get people who can be decent human beings in. It is
| punishment to the other residents to let it continue
| unabated.
|
| Your camera comment is odd. I know the cameras saved
| lives. Witnessed it with my own two eyes. You also don't
| know what cameras exist in my home, maybe I do have one
| in every room? It is a deterrent that reminds a person
| who may think twice about their actions because of the
| increased probability of being punished.
|
| Go walk through some social housing without cameras while
| wearing expensive shoes and jewelry. Do it daily for a
| year. That will change your perspective, assuming you are
| still around to provide it.
| jart wrote:
| Yeah I was pleasantly surprised reading the article that
| the people managing these public housing complexes
| _actually cared_ enough about the folks living there to
| install the cameras. I hope the GP has the empathy to
| understand why that 's important, but judging by the
| focus on carrots and socially engineering away nicotine
| usage, I doubt they've ever cohabitated spaces with
| someone who isn't a tech worker making $300k/year.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I don't think people are anti camera. People are against
| using cameras to retroactively police EVERYTHING. No one
| likes the spitter, but the example of the blind person
| lending her keys out to someone doing a grocery run for
| them is where this is stupid and harmful.
|
| A rational human would have seen that a stranger was
| accessing the building using a disabled person's
| credentials with armfuls of groceries and correctly
| surmised the situation, or made a quick call to confirm
| that it was authorized. Instead, a formal process was
| initiated where one possible outcome is that a low income
| blind person is evicted. That didn't happen, but it is a
| waste of resources to have a formal process to have a
| blind person file a report explaining their shopping
| needs.
| [deleted]
| nipponese wrote:
| Sometimes I get the feeling personal accountability is
| becoming bourgeoisie.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| "personal responsibility" has always been a refrain of the
| bourgeois to avoid, ironically, personal responsibility for
| the oppression of the system they maintain for the
| exploitation of the proletariat.
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| I figure your either a Marxist or Communist since it's
| right out of that playbook to say such a thing. So your
| take is we can't hold bad actors accountable because you
| hate capitalism and you think capitalism is the thing to
| blame, super...I am sure you're the life of the party.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > So your take is we can't hold bad actors accountable
|
| No, its not.
|
| > because you hate capitalism
|
| I don't hate capitalism any more than I hate childhood;
| it has its purpose and needs to be moved beyond.
|
| Like feudalism, though, it creates a class that is very
| interested in preventing that at the expense and who,
| insofar as they act on that interest, are bad actors and
| need to be held accountable.
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| > I don't hate capitalism any more than I hate childhood;
| it has its purpose and needs to be moved beyond.
|
| > Like feudalism, though, it creates a class that is very
| interested in preventing that at the expense and who,
| insofar as they act on that interest, are bad actors and
| need to be held accountable.
|
| Apologies for the misunderstanding of your position.
| fires10 wrote:
| I have been of the opinion that everyone needs to hold
| themselves accountable. The wealthy and the poor and
| understand why someone does what they do. Public
| urination? Are there sufficient facilities available? I
| live in the US and if I am out and about, finding an
| appropriate place to use the facilities is quite
| difficult at times. A disturbing large number of
| businesses in poor areas block there restrooms and or are
| "out of order". No, the frequency of them being "out of
| order" is not realistic. They are intentionally "out of
| order" to deny having to deal with the issue. The simple
| of ensuring everyone can live and exist with dignity I do
| hold the bourgeoise accountable for. Pointing to personal
| responsibility while not first ensuring everyone can
| adequately live is a sin.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > A disturbing large number of businesses in poor areas
| block there restrooms and or are "out of order"
|
| I hear you. I also have empathy for people who clean
| public bathrooms.
|
| I strongly suspect the "rich" and "upper class" aren't
| the ones putting the "out of order" signs on the doors.
| It's the workers at the store who are responsible for
| cleaning them.
|
| I suspect they're tired of being responsible for cleaning
| up the stuff that happens in there. Feces smeared on the
| walls, wads of paper shoved down in the urinal and urine
| overflowing and flooding the floors. Vomit everywhere.
|
| If I had to hazard a guess, if you personally organized a
| volunteer group, went around that neighborhood, and
| provided reliable bathroom cleaning services and repair
| you'd start seeing more bathrooms.
|
| Next time you walk by one, ask the person at the front
| desk if they'll let you clean it.
| secretsatan wrote:
| The wads of toilet paper in the urinal is one i've seen
| most often as somehow deliberate that i just don't
| understand (i've been to some terrible toilets at
| festivals, short of the feces on walls most are just not
| able to cope with volume). I've never caught anyone doing
| the urinal one but it just seems so malicious
| snovv_crash wrote:
| The funny thing is that you say it like the bad behaviour
| here is something that negatively impacts the rich and
| therefore the rich are punishing it. In reality, the bad
| behaviour we are discussing here (spitting indoors in
| public housing common space) negatively impacts the poor
| far more than the rich, and yet you are still against any
| accountability for the perpetrator.
|
| Tell me, whose side are you really on?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The funny thing is that you say it like the bad
| behaviour here [...] yet you are still against any
| accountability for the perpetrator.
|
| I wasn't addressing anything beyond the generalization
| offered that "personal accountability is becoming
| bourgeoisie [sic]", which was the only claim in the post
| I responded to. If I want to discuss the specifics
| further upthread, I'll respond to something discussing
| those specifics.
|
| Assuming that I had a message other than what I said
| which is not reasonably related to either what I said
| _or_ what I said it in response to is... quite a reach
| just to have something to argue about. I'm sure you can
| find someone _actually saying_ something you can argue
| against, rather than something that requires you to
| conjure a fantasy point just to get upset and aegue
| against it.
| nipponese wrote:
| I also wonder if we are beginning to accept criminality
| as class elevation. That's a society I don't want to be a
| part of.
| Aunche wrote:
| >My guess is he'll bounce back and forth from jail to the
| street until he dies.
|
| You're acting as if poor people are inherently helpless and
| incapable of following basic rules. Most people are going to
| have friends or family that would rather spare a couch rather
| than them live off the streets. If not, he can live in a
| shelter. Either way, he's going to have to learn how to
| respect other people's property if he wants to stay.
|
| In the meantime, someone else on the wait-list for public
| housing who is willing to follow rules can move into now-
| vacant apartment.
| tiku wrote:
| Hard lessons, if your parents didn't teach them to you.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| According to the article, it is racist to use cameras to catch
| people spitting in the hallways because apparently people of
| color spit in hallways more often than people of non-color. So
| enforcing the rule against hallway spitting is racist. This is
| the same logic that is used to justify not enforcing shoplifting
| or vagrancy laws in san francisco and other places.
|
| The fundamental question is whether we as a society are allowed
| to enforce any standards of behavior even if they end up having
| racial disparities in enforcement. The solution that is
| fashionable right now--to just not apply rules to people of color
| --seems more racist than holding people of color to the same
| standard as everyone else.
| cookieperson wrote:
| Ignore race. Should amazon drivers be fired for not peeing in
| jugs, aka using a public restroom, to follow AI planned routes?
| What about Pepsi drivers taking unsanctioned 5 min breaks
| because they have a pounding headache? How about having all
| your activities monitored as you cross the street so ads target
| your cellphone with low quality food to increase revenue but
| leading to worse health and inevitably keeping your poor?
| Should land lords be allowed to catch people spitting in the
| hallway, sure, but there's a lot more real problems associated
| with this kind of technology that has and will continue to
| increase wealth inequality. If you really think about it...
| It's almost the perfect tool for it.
| hiatus wrote:
| So what's the suggestion here? Put the cat back in the bag?
| Technology will continue to evolve, society has and can
| continue to put in place barriers for specific applications
| of technology. The same tech used for the Pepsi driver's
| "unsanctioned break" is also the same tech that provides for
| their federally-mandated rest periods.
| cookieperson wrote:
| No the answer is for workers rights to exist in America and
| for us to regulate how machines programmed by people treat
| people. There's a human component to work done by humans.
| [deleted]
| pixl97 wrote:
| "We put a camera up in an area with POC and we caught POC doing
| X, therefore POC do X more than Y"
|
| This kind of thinking is why people also think that POC also
| use illegal drugs at a higher rate than non-POC, thereby
| putting more enforcement on POC, hence catching more of them
| when statistics show relatively equal rates of illegal (but not
| necessarily the same drugs) drug use.
|
| And again, America loves having different standards that apply
| to different groups for roughly the same crime. Cocaine use,
| well that's not good but rich people do that so you should go
| to rehab. Crack use, time to bury you under the jail.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > "We put a camera up in an area with POC and we caught POC
| doing X, therefore POC do X more than Y"
|
| But why did we put the camera there? Not because we enjoy
| spending money on cameras, but because we had a problem there
| already.
| [deleted]
| varelse wrote:
| [dead]
| samstave wrote:
| F everything about this.
|
| I think it's a shame that we have billions of cameras because we
| have conditioned society to be fearful, thus compliant to
| surveillance tools like this, and so many others.
|
| I think employers should have to disclose every method manner and
| technology used to surveil their employees.
|
| I'm coming to add value to your company, not blindly give up ALL
| of my rights.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Sometimes these well-meaning concern for the poor ends up
| actually hurting the poor more.
|
| Poor people also want to live in housing that doesn't have people
| spitting all the time. They want to live in a relatively secure
| environment. Poor people also want to feel safe.
|
| In the name of caring about poor people, a lot of well-meaning
| people are basically enabling the oppression of poor people.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| It's the same situation in the education. You get rid of the
| faster track for talented students, the poor would have even
| less avenues to advance, the rich are unfazed because they can
| afford to move and they always have private tutors.
| tiku wrote:
| Public housing is also responsible for cleaning it up
| ,replacement of stolen items etc. As a tennant you should be
| happy people are being held accountable for their actions.
| GaggiX wrote:
| The choice of using AI generated images in this article is
| interesting.
|
| (If there are no AI generated images anymore, probably Dang
| changed the link to the Washington Post)
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