[HN Gopher] Axon's Draft One AI Police Report Generator Is Desig...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Axon's Draft One AI Police Report Generator Is Designed to Defy
       Transparency
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 197 points
       Date   : 2025-07-11 00:21 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
        
       | surbas wrote:
       | Wonder if OpenAI has all the originals, especially in light of
       | that lawsuit with nytimes.
        
         | chaps wrote:
         | If so, it'd definitely be FOIA'able.
        
           | brookst wrote:
           | I don't think FOIA applies to private companies, only
           | government records.
        
             | qingcharles wrote:
             | Not correct. All FOIA laws that I know of say that any
             | records created or held by private corporations under
             | contract to the government are FOIA-able via the
             | government. (the government has to go out and get the
             | records for you)
        
               | chaps wrote:
               | Yep! Here's Illinois's statutory language on this topic:
               | (2) A public record that is not in the possession of a
               | public body but is in the possession of a party with whom
               | the agency has contracted to perform a governmental
               | function on behalf of the public body, and that directly
               | relates to the governmental function and is not otherwise
               | exempt under this Act, shall be considered a public
               | record of the public body, for purposes of this Act.
               | 
               | The nuance is in the definitional limitations/vagueness
               | of "directly relates to the governmental function".
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | From TFA, " You can read our full report, which details what we
         | found in those documents, how we filed those public records
         | requests, and how you can file your own, here." With the last
         | word here being a link to another article:
         | 
         | https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/effs-guide-getting-rec...
        
         | dmead wrote:
         | Their models run on Microsoft models and on azure.
        
       | asah wrote:
       | The real issue is accountability - officers need to be held
       | accountable for reports the way pilots are accountable for use of
       | auto-pilot[1].
       | 
       | [1] yes they are:
       | https://www.google.com/search?q=are+pilots+accountable+for+u...
        
         | adriand wrote:
         | That's really just one issue among many, and it actually makes
         | me worry more about this technology, not less: it provides a
         | clear incentive for the officer to stand by the contents of a
         | report that he or she did not write, even if they realize at
         | some point it is wrong, because they hastily or lazily signed
         | it.
         | 
         | The way this technology is designed is a clear example of
         | dystopian outcomes driven by market forces: capitalism inserted
         | into processes (like justice) which society ought to protect
         | against perversion by profit motives. I can imagine a version
         | of this technology that is designed with societal benefits in
         | mind, but instead we get one designed to make the sale.
        
           | qingcharles wrote:
           | Here's the thing. I've read thousands of police reports. Most
           | police reports are super short and super vague. Most police
           | reports _are never read even once, even though a large
           | percentage result in convictions_. Most criminal charges
           | result in plea deals. Most defendants will never see any
           | evidence against them before pleading guilty+.
           | 
           | If, in the exceptionally rare case that a defendant goes to
           | trial, an officer has to testify, it is probably on average a
           | year after he wrote the report. He will be sat down just
           | before trial by the prosecutor and shown his report and asked
           | to read it. On the stand he generally will not have his
           | report available to reference and is supposed to use his
           | memory, but this will be corrupted by his reading of whatever
           | is in the report he read a couple of hours before. If his
           | report is full of inaccuracies he will almost certainly
           | testify under oath to those.
           | 
           | +This situation has changed very slightly in the last few
           | years with lawyers now supposed to verify the probable guilt
           | of their client before recommending a guilty plea.
        
         | hollywood_court wrote:
         | Law enforcement needs greater accountability altogether.
         | 
         | I've long believed that police officers should be required to
         | carry private liability insurance, just like professionals in
         | many other high risk fields. If an officer is uninsurable, they
         | should be unhireable, plain and simple. Repeated misconduct
         | would drive up their premiums or disqualify them entirely,
         | creating a real consequence for bad behavior.
         | 
         | It's astonishing that police officers aren't held to the same
         | standards as the rest of us. As a carpenter and building
         | contractor, if I showed up at the wrong address and built or
         | tore down something by mistake, I'd be financially and legally
         | responsible. I'd be expected to make it right, and my insurance
         | would likely step in.
         | 
         | But when a police officer raids the wrong home, injures or
         | kills innocent people, or throws tear gas into a room with a
         | baby, there's rarely accountability--legal, financial, or
         | professional. That's unacceptable in any system that claims to
         | serve and protect the public.
        
           | moron4hire wrote:
           | Politically, you could probably sell the insurance idea as
           | actually _protecting_ officers. But then you 'd get the wrong
           | people opposing it...
        
             | lapphi wrote:
             | We could call it a cost cutting measure to save the
             | taxpayer billions in unnecessary legal fees and
             | settlements.
        
           | barbazoo wrote:
           | Chesterton's fence cones to mind. I wonder what unintended
           | positive effects the current policy has.
        
             | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
             | Chesterton's fence, as properly applied, should have been
             | considered when granting the immunity we see now.
             | 
             | e.g. I wonder what unintended (or perhaps intended)
             | negative effects the current policy has compared to the
             | previous one.
        
             | drewbeck wrote:
             | Is your question what's the positive effect of an
             | unaccountable and violent police force? In general the
             | effect is continued terrorization of poor and black and
             | brown communities and the entrenchment of the police's
             | municipal power. This is a "positive" effect only to the
             | worst people who want a hierarchical society where they get
             | to be on top by force.
        
             | majormajor wrote:
             | IMO Chesterton'ing the state of policing in the US results
             | in deep fundamental awkwardness.
             | 
             | Why are police heavily armed and adopting military tactics?
             | 
             | Because of famous encounters with heavily-armed criminals
             | by lightly-equipped cops.
             | 
             | Why are criminals able to be so heavily armed?
             | 
             | Because of treating a "right to bear arms" as semi-sacred.
             | Supposedly in the name of _distrust_ of government.
             | 
             | A heavily-armed citizenry doesn't _have_ to lead to fascism
             | but it can certainly give people great excuses to enable
             | it... (See also how it allows the existence of armed
             | private militias who will talk about  "standing by" to
             | assist with certain government actions.)
        
             | acdha wrote:
             | Qualified immunity is a relatively modern invention by the
             | Supreme Court. The origins were fairly reasonable in the
             | civil rights era, saying in Pierson v. Ray that some
             | Mississippi police officers were not liable for enforcing a
             | state law against assembly which was later ruled to be
             | unconstitutional, which is probably the strongest case for
             | a positive effect.
             | 
             | The negatives started mounting as it was rapidly expanded
             | from the question of whether the action was legal at the
             | time as in the Mississippi case to whether the officer
             | violated clearly-established precedent for the specific
             | actions they made. There really isn't a positive argument
             | for that better than "the courts invented a doctrine
             | because Congress didn't set a clean policy". Because it
             | ties into some hot-button political issues now, we're
             | unlikely to see improvements for a while but it is
             | interesting to contemplate the alternate timeline where the
             | Markey/Booker/Harris resolution in 2020 actually turned
             | into a law.
        
           | tbrownaw wrote:
           | > _I've long believed that police officers should be required
           | to carry private liability insurance, just like professionals
           | in many other high risk fields. If an officer is uninsurable,
           | they should be unhireable, plain and simple. Repeated
           | misconduct would drive up their premiums or disqualify them
           | entirely, creating a real consequence for bad behavior._
           | 
           | And it'd be administered by some faceless bureaucracy full of
           | accountants, rather than a couple local politicians that the
           | union can just bully (or bribe or whatever) into ignoring
           | things.
           | 
           | But of course the current mess derives from sovereign
           | immunity, which might be a bit tricky to get the politicians
           | to tinker with more than they already have. :(
        
             | messe wrote:
             | > sovereign immunity
             | 
             | I think you mean qualified immunity in this context?
        
               | tbrownaw wrote:
               | My understanding is that that's the result of the
               | tinkering that's already been done to tone things down a
               | bit.
        
           | FireBeyond wrote:
           | > But when a police officer raids the wrong home, injures or
           | kills innocent people, or throws tear gas into a room with a
           | baby, there's rarely accountability--legal, financial, or
           | professional.
           | 
           | It's not just that there's rarely accountability - there's
           | explicitly no accountability.
           | 
           | People have sued officers, police departments, cities for the
           | cost of damages from such mistaken raids (including ones that
           | were completely negligent, like wrong street entirely) and
           | the courts have explicitly ruled that they have zero
           | reponsibility to pay for any of the damage caused.
        
           | Spooky23 wrote:
           | That's a dangerous slippery slope. Most public officers
           | (employees) are subject to a wide range of ethics and other
           | regulations that impact post-service employment. In exchange,
           | you're indemnified for official acts and the government has a
           | duty to defend you.
           | 
           | I've served in policy making roles at different levels of
           | government. There's a variety of businesses post employment
           | that I'm not permitted to enter in post employment, some for
           | 2-5 years, some indefinitely. Those restrictions are taken
           | seriously, and I know that I'll be held accountable.
           | 
           | Putting the onus on the employee is really enabling bad
           | behavior - the issue is the poor governance of the police,
           | and using the courts as some sort of cudgel won't fix it, it
           | will just create more corruption as the powers that be will
           | hang out patsies to take the fall.
           | 
           | If the police are allowed to operate paramilitary forces,
           | they need paramilitary discipline and rules of engagement.
           | Army soldiers breaking rules of engagement get punished and
           | officers sidelined and pushed out of the service. Police in
           | many cases have been allowed to create cultures where
           | everyone scratches each others back. Many police are
           | veterans, and many privately will comment on the differences
           | between those experiences.
           | 
           | IMO, the way to address the issues you describe is standard
           | separation of duties. Invest in state and regional police
           | forces, disempower local police, and move enforcement and
           | investigation of police to a chain of command removed from
           | the police. (Perhaps a State AG) When you need to blunt the
           | variance associated with people's poor application of
           | discretion, the answer is usually a bureaucratic process.
        
             | nemomarx wrote:
             | The difficulty with enforcing via AGs is that prosecutors
             | feel the need to have a good relationship with the police
             | for their other cases. You need an office who isn't going
             | to be working with local and state cops at all, maybe a
             | federal body?
        
               | Spooky23 wrote:
               | Attorneys General are usually not states or district
               | attorneys. That may vary by state -- I'm not an expert in
               | this... iv lived in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New
               | York, where the role doesn't include that so my
               | perspective.
               | 
               | Point being, as much separation as possible from the
               | police (or any) chain of command is essential. The
               | Federal government successfully used independent agencies
               | until the circus that came to town with Trump part 2
               | appeared.
        
           | pjc50 wrote:
           | > But when a police officer raids the wrong home, injures or
           | kills innocent people, or throws tear gas into a room with a
           | baby, there's rarely accountability--legal, financial, or
           | professional. That's unacceptable in any system that claims
           | to serve and protect the public.
           | 
           | The American public, or at least the set of them whose vote
           | counts among the gerrymandering, have explicitly chosen this.
           | Their representatives are now building an even less
           | accountable system to be used against "immigrants", i.e.
           | anyone non-white, who can be abducted and denied legal
           | representation.
        
         | hxtk wrote:
         | I really wish policing would take more inspiration from
         | aviation on a different avenue for police accountability.
         | 
         | The NTSB exists not to blame pilots (though they sometimes do),
         | but to make air travel safer and prevent future plane crashes.
         | In the business of preventing disaster in safety-critical
         | industry, if you chalk something up to human error or call it a
         | tragic accident, you guarantee that it will happen again.
         | Finding that everyone did everything by the book means the book
         | needs to be rewritten because the book that exists today
         | contains a recipe for plane crashes.
         | 
         | I wish police would treat use of force incidents the same way.
         | The investigations after police use of force ask whether the
         | officer violated the law or department policy. Like most law
         | enforcement and judicial work, the exercise focuses on
         | identifying, trying, and punishing guilty parties. If there is
         | no guilty party, the process can produce no change. I would
         | like to see more investigations into police use of force that
         | focus on improving safety outcomes instead.
        
         | tehsolution wrote:
         | The solution to police state is more policing?
         | 
         | What about less? Take away guns and reach of the cops and
         | politicians?
         | 
         | Accountability by making 900k cops across all levels of
         | government stripped of power and made normal people? Same for
         | the 600k politicians coast to coast. Screw their story mode
         | mental illness.
         | 
         | Make everyone busy generalizing logistics process to serve
         | biology and stop with story mode hustling memes about fiat
         | (vacuous proclamations) valuations using jargon from the 1800s?
         | 
         | Roughly 1.5 million pols and cops have 10s of millions wrapped
         | around their finger. With urbanization the best part is a bunch
         | of them live just a few miles from any given large urban area
         | full of people being screwed by them.
         | 
         | The time for demanding meager reforms from 60+ year olds who
         | have no skin in our future is long gone.
         | 
         | Skip the guns and go the route of making everyone a normie
         | civil servant and no one has leverage
         | https://aeon.co/essays/game-theory-s-cure-for-corruption-mak...
         | 
         | Except the low level gossipy kind like "so n so cheated".
         | Statistical analysis of death trends suggest we kill each other
         | on Main Street over such gossip at the same rate humans did
         | centuries ago. It's those moments of nation state fueled
         | atrocity and imperialism when human death spikes. Seem clear in
         | the streets most adults just don't go on murderous rampage.
        
           | ta8645 wrote:
           | That's incredibly naive. Spend some time watching police body
           | camera footage. By and large, the police are doing
           | exceptionally well in hostile and difficult circumstances.
           | We're all safer because there is a real counterforce to tough
           | guys, mafias, and paramilitary strong men. They don't exist
           | or are heavily controlled, because the police are a powerful
           | force for good. Taking away the police would create a power
           | vacuum that would be filled faster than you can imagine; and
           | by people who will treat us all much worse than the police
           | ever have.
        
             | teddyh wrote:
             | If you make that conclusion after watching police camera
             | footage, aren't you making a classic survivorship bias
             | fallacy? Those films that you watched were those films that
             | 
             | 1. Were allowed by the police officer themselves to be
             | recorded in the first place (i.e. the cameras were either
             | deliberately switched on, or at least suffered no timely
             | "camera malfunctions")
             | 
             | 2. And also only films which made it through the filter of
             | being considered suitable for publication, after the fact.
             | 
             | What you have actually been watching are carefully-selected
             | propaganda pieces that, even though they may be indiviually
             | true and unaltered, are undoubtedly presenting a false
             | view, supporting the powers that select them.
        
               | ta8645 wrote:
               | Such videos are not the only basis on which to make the
               | argument I put forth. But you'll also find many sources
               | of police videos that are not "released" by the police,
               | but secured by FOIA requests. There are of course
               | examples of videos with police planting evidence, or
               | using excessive force, or other unfortunate things. But
               | by and large, you'll see over and over, the police
               | behaving admirably and in the public interest.
        
         | pbronez wrote:
         | Yes. It doesn't matter exactly how each word in the police
         | report was entered. All that matters is the officer signed off
         | on it. They should be personally & totally responsible for the
         | contents of the report. I don't care if they use generative AI,
         | speech to text, Dvorak touch typing, QWERTY hunt-and-peck or
         | anything else. An officer must read the final report and sign
         | to assert its accuracy.
         | 
         | If police reports are low quality, it's an officer performance
         | problem. Obviously performance management in public safety is
         | exceptionally challenging, but that's the problem domain that
         | matters. You cannot solve law enforcement accountability by
         | tweaking your AI User Interface.
         | 
         | That said, this seems like a missed opportunity to use
         | technology to increase accountability. If you're running speech
         | to text on body cam footage, great! Everyone involved in the
         | conversation should get a copy of the transcript. There should
         | be a straightforward way to challenge STT errors.
         | 
         | Again though, it's the same deal as the body cam footage
         | itself. Always-on body cams with default public access are one
         | thing, officer-managed, sue-to-review is quite another. The
         | crucial issues are political, not technical.
        
       | mycall wrote:
       | It should matter which parts were written by AI or by officer.
       | Once the officer signs off on the report, they take full
       | responsibility for the content.
        
         | zdw wrote:
         | Do you read EULAs all the way through every time?
         | 
         | People just LGTM rubber stamp nearly everything they're given,
         | as it's time efficient in the now.
        
           | tqi wrote:
           | Do you think there is a difference between a civilian driver
           | ignoring the routine maintenance schedule for their car and a
           | professional pilot ignoring the maintenance schedule for
           | their plane?
        
           | 9dev wrote:
           | That's absolutely their choice, then. But if it turns out the
           | AI wrote bullshit into the report, the officer that rubber
           | stamped it must be held accountable for that, with no
           | difference to a situation where they had written the bullshit
           | themselves.
        
         | conartist6 wrote:
         | I can only assume you meant to write "shouldn't" instead of
         | "should", but if you study human factors you'll discover that
         | certain kinds of taking-shortcuts behavior are inevitable when
         | dealing with humans. Speeding when we drive, for example. We
         | know we are creating a material risk of getting pulled over and
         | fined, but we just basically decide to ignore that risk because
         | for most of us it is outweighed by the convenience (and real
         | value) of getting everywhere we're going faster.
         | 
         | As always considering how a person would interact with an
         | intern is surprisingly instructive to how they will form a
         | working relationship with an non-sentient tool like a language
         | model. You would expect them to give it a probationary
         | experience to earn their trust after which if they are
         | satisfied they will almost certainly express that trust by
         | giving the tool a greater and greater degree of freedom with
         | less active (and less critical) oversight.
         | 
         | It is not the initial state that worries me where the officers
         | still mistrust a new technology and are vigilant of it. What
         | worries me is the late-stage where they have learned to trust
         | it (because it has learned to cover their asses correctly) and
         | the AI itself actually ends up exercising power in human social
         | structures because people have a surprising bias towards not
         | speaking up when it would be safer to keep your head down and
         | go with the flow, even when the flow is letting AI take
         | operational control of society inch by inch
        
       | Ralfp wrote:
       | Having picked a habit of watching propable cause proceedings on
       | YouTube, I wonder if this is simply result of real reports that
       | AI was trained on being purposefully obtuse and laconic to give
       | prosecutors a wiggle space in the court room?
        
         | FireBeyond wrote:
         | Are you talking about Judge Fleischer in Texas?
         | 
         | I do enjoy seeing those (well, I shouldn't).
         | 
         | The prosecutors are given the most absolute trash reports to
         | work with. "Failure to ID, after a traffic stop." "What was the
         | stop for?" "It doesn't say." "So no PC for the stop."
         | 
         | "A caller and said she thought someone was stealing their
         | neighbor's U Haul. A man was observed walking on that street
         | and taken into custody for ..." "For what? Walking while
         | black?"
         | 
         | But no sympathy for the prosecutors either. Garbage reports,
         | but they obviously don't read them pre-hearing, and have
         | plainly become accustomed to judges rubber stamping their PC
         | hearings.
         | 
         | I do like that he doesn't go 'lightly' with the defendants.
         | "You got off lucky this time. You know it, I know it. Do better
         | or it might not go the same next time", and when there is PC or
         | other such, he doesn't put up with any bullshit either.
         | 
         | More judges like him are needed.
        
           | drewbeck wrote:
           | His patronizing tone to the defendants is the one thing I
           | can't stand about him. Telling some kid who did nothing wrong
           | and was pulled over for no reason "be careful" is bs. What
           | else should the kid do? They already were doing nothing
           | wrong.
        
             | Ralfp wrote:
             | My favorite explanation for this is "Everything you say can
             | and will be used against you. So why talk if you are
             | winning?".
        
         | doctorpangloss wrote:
         | the most interesting idea so far.
         | 
         | What Axon's product should be: Define "best" police report, and
         | assist the officer to write that.
         | 
         | What it is: Axon makes whatever police departments ask for.
         | 
         | It doesn't have to be a big conspiracy. It's not incompetence
         | either. Hanlon's Razer should really be, "Never attribute to
         | malice that which is adequately explained by" the enterprise
         | sales pipeline.
         | 
         | Enterprise sales is why we are talking about Axon and not far
         | older, detailed, thoughtful efforts from all sorts of other
         | organizations.
        
       | csujoy wrote:
       | our officers don't have time to comb through every transcript,
       | fixing it for privacy, empathy, and all that. But keeping the
       | transcripts is still a big win: more info in police records can
       | make police officers more data-driven :)
        
       | causal wrote:
       | I think such a tool could be useful for ensuring all the facts
       | get included, but I hate the idea that some departments could
       | start highering illiterate officers if this tech goes far enough.
        
         | viraptor wrote:
         | > could start highering illiterate officers
         | 
         | I love this mistake.
        
           | causal wrote:
           | Heh. Gonna leave it then
        
           | alganet wrote:
           | Can you elaborate a little bit more?
        
             | teamspirit wrote:
             | "Highering" should be "hiring"
        
               | alganet wrote:
               | I asked for viraptor's elaboration on what he thinks of
               | it.
               | 
               | Thanks for your perspective though.
        
               | jameshart wrote:
               | Normally people don't come back to explain a joke,
               | because it ruins it.
        
               | alganet wrote:
               | One could say "it's a joke", without explaining it, thus,
               | not ruining it.
               | 
               | Also, saying some vague shit and then claiming it as a
               | joke is very convenient.
               | 
               | Finally, police injustice is not a subject for humor.
               | It's no laughing matter. I'm not the one who's not
               | "getting it" here.
        
               | jameshart wrote:
               | The original poster said they were worried about this
               | leading to "highering illiterate officers"
               | 
               | Mis-spelling the word 'hiring' as 'highering' when
               | expressing a fear about falling literacy standards in the
               | police is ironic, and therefore funny.
               | 
               | Further elaboration was not warranted, but I'm providing
               | it as a public service.
        
               | alganet wrote:
               | Highering is an existing, valid word, and it fits the
               | phrase.
               | 
               | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/highering
               | 
               | I agree that it is an unusual choice, but that doesn't
               | mean you can assume it was a mispelling.
               | 
               | Moreover, the meaning went through. Ultimately, the word
               | itself does not matter, and none of your explanations are
               | relevant.
        
               | kortilla wrote:
               | That word doesn't make any sense in this context. Stop
               | digging this hole further FFS.
        
               | alganet wrote:
               | It makes complete sense, it means "promotion" in that
               | phrase.
               | 
               | If you are going to disagree, please elaborate.
        
           | hodgesrm wrote:
           | That really should be a word: kind of a portmanteau that
           | combines hire and raise up/promote.
        
         | hollywood_court wrote:
         | This may be news to some, but many departments already hire
         | officers that are borderline illiterate. It's especially true
         | here in the south.
         | 
         | My mother enjoyed a ~30 year career in law enforcement while
         | being able to read at a junior high level. And that's being
         | generous.
         | 
         | Of course that's just one anecdote, but just spend some time
         | with deputies in rural Alabama and you'll see what I mean.
        
           | jjtheblunt wrote:
           | never have been in Alabama, and i find that super
           | interesting.
           | 
           | how does anyone end up borderline illiterate in the US for
           | the last several decades? can kids drop out without passing
           | reading, like drop out as grade schoolers?
        
           | qingcharles wrote:
           | I've read thousands of police reports. I would say this is
           | true about their literacy, and their typing skills are
           | equally horrible. They also generally really hate writing
           | reports (which are almost universally never read) and tend to
           | make them as short as possible.
        
           | kortilla wrote:
           | Being able to read at a junior high level is literate. The
           | average reading level in the US is 7-8th grade so she's right
           | in the middle.
        
       | theptip wrote:
       | > So we don't store the original draft and that's by design and
       | that's really because the last thing we want to do is create more
       | disclosure headaches for our customers and our attorney's offices
       | 
       | You have to wonder if this will stand up in court. I hope not.
       | 
       | AI has a great opportunity to take processes that contain hidden
       | bias and make them more legible and therefore amenable to fixing.
       | 
       | But it also has the opportunity to do the opposite, and we should
       | be cautious to make sure guardrails are in place when putting
       | this tech into life-and-death systems.
       | 
       | "Stamp this LLM text in a hurry" is an invitation for whatever
       | errors and biases are baked into the system to be propagated. You
       | need provenance and measurement of LLM outputs.
        
         | brookst wrote:
         | Yeah the avoidance of record keeping to reduce disclosure
         | smacks of the policies that got Google into hot water recently:
         | https://www.epspros.com/news-resources/news/2024/google-accu...
        
       | Workaccount2 wrote:
       | I wondering how much this even matters in the age of everything
       | being recorded.
       | 
       | If they are using axon body cameras and vehicle cameras, then
       | usually the entire interaction is recorded, often from multiple
       | officers.
       | 
       | I cannot imagine a defense so incompetent that they rely on the
       | police report rather than watching the entire body cam footage
       | and doing their own assessment.
       | 
       | Even if the cops are doing something sketchy (like turning off
       | their camera) then it's not like the police report would be any
       | more trustworthy.
        
         | notaustinpowers wrote:
         | The current administration has already removed the requirement
         | for federal police forces to wear body cameras. As well as made
         | statements (but little action so far) to federalize the police
         | force to be under the jurisdiction of the DOJ. Everything being
         | recorded may not be the case very soon. Sorry, I'd get sources
         | but I just woke up, I'll edit this later with them.
        
           | jameshart wrote:
           | If it's not being recorded, what would this AI summary be
           | based on?
        
             | brookst wrote:
             | "You are a helpful agent. Police officers will describe an
             | interaction to you and you will write a report that
             | highlights the appropriateness of the officer's actions,
             | omitting anything that might indicate they acted
             | improperly"
        
               | jameshart wrote:
               | Are people missing that this AI is being offered _by a
               | body cam company_?
        
               | istjohn wrote:
               | Why do you think that's relevant?
        
             | pjc50 wrote:
             | You describe the conviction you want to achieve and the AI
             | makes up a report to secure that.
        
           | hughesjj wrote:
           | I mean, already at the local cop level "forgetting" to turn
           | the body cam on or only releasing the video (at least,
           | quickly) if it puts the officer in a positive light seems to
           | be the norm
           | 
           | * https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/officers-body-camera-
           | wen...
           | 
           | * https://www.nbcmiami.com/investigations/body-cameras-
           | turned-...
           | 
           | * UK but it's the same discussion
           | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66809642
           | 
           | * https://www.wbrc.com/2025/07/12/coroner-completes-report-
           | jab...
           | 
           | * https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/release-of-police-
           | bodycam-...
        
         | avs733 wrote:
         | It goes a lot deeper than this, the real world isn't as simple
         | as 'objective truth' and much of the law relies on interpreting
         | the facts we all seek. This is where this technology fails, it
         | normalizes nudging the margins to include a framing of what
         | happened (including that video) using particular and precise
         | language. That language influences court decisions.
         | 
         | For example, the phrase 'furtive movements' seems really
         | anochronistic. Is that a phrase you use? cops use in their day
         | to day life? But it constantly shows up in police reports. Why?
         | The courts have said that 'furtive' movements are suspicious
         | enough to trigger probable cause - which justifies a search. So
         | now, cops every where write that they observe movements that
         | are furtive. Is what your attorney viewed furtive? where they
         | normal movements? were they suspicious? The cop described them
         | as furtive though and we defer to cops, in part because they
         | speak the language of the courts, and now your arrest is valid
         | and that search is valid and whatever is recovered is valid -
         | because a court said movements need to be furtive and you
         | sneezed and a cop described that as furtive even though he had
         | already decided to do the search before he got out of his car.
         | 
         | The only way our system works is if at every level every
         | participant (people, jurors, judges, politicians) distrust the
         | words of police - especially when they habitually use the
         | language of the law to justify their actions. What this tool
         | does is quite the opposite, it will statistically normalize the
         | words police use to describe every interaction in language that
         | is meant to persuade and influence courts now and over time to
         | defer to police.
         | 
         | https://www.bjjohnsonlaw.com/furtive-movements-and-fourth-am...
         | 
         | https://www.californialawreview.org/print/whack-a-mole-sus
        
         | axus wrote:
         | I was thinking the same thing. If the AI report depends on the
         | raw audio, then it should be preserved and the defense should
         | compare that to the final police report. Having the edit
         | history would be useful for improving the software and
         | analyzing the officer's motivations, but ultimately we're not
         | in a worse situation than before.
         | 
         | I'd predict the synthesis of the AI transcript and the police
         | officer's memory will be more accurate than just the police
         | officer alone. Would be nice if there's an independent study.
         | 
         | There are very incompetent public defenders, if we attribute to
         | incompetence instead of malice, AI isn't changing that.
        
         | qingcharles wrote:
         | Even in jurisdictions that require recordings at all times,
         | there are times when the police are required by law to switch
         | them off (entering certain non-public spaces etc), so there can
         | always be gaps that are legal, never mind illegal.
        
       | moron4hire wrote:
       | > sign an acknowledgement that the report was generated using
       | Draft One and that they have reviewed the report and made
       | necessary edits to ensure it is _consistent with the officer's
       | recollection_.
       | 
       | We already know that police officers are not more reliable than
       | the general public as eye witnesses and that eye witness reports
       | are generally very unreliable as they are very susceptible to
       | prompting bias. This seems like leaning in to prompt bias. The AI
       | is now prompting the human rather than the other way around. This
       | is perverse.
        
         | UncleEntity wrote:
         | No doubt.
         | 
         | I was watching one of those youtube bodycam videos of an
         | accident scene where one of the cars ended up in a gas station.
         | Police show up and it's chaos -- victims on the ground needing
         | medical attention, witnesses helping (or not) said accident
         | victims, police not knowing who was in what car, &etc.
         | 
         | In the midst of all this (when it calmed down enough for the
         | police to get a handle on the scene) they tried to identify
         | someone who didn't want to be involved and promptly cuffed them
         | and threw them in the back of a squad car for "being
         | uncooperative". One of the other witnesses, having seen this,
         | decided that person was the missing driver of the other car and
         | told this to the police with all sorts of confidence.
         | 
         | Now the police have a 'suspect' to concentrate on because
         | anyone 'acting squirrelly' must have something to hide as it's
         | totally inconceivable to them someone might just not want to
         | participate in their investigation. Luckily this poor,
         | traumatized kid was able to 'prove' they weren't involved
         | before spending who knows how much time behind bars based on
         | 'credible' eye-witness testimony.
         | 
         | These audio-only AI generated reports should be all kinds of
         | accurate now that police are trained to say 'quit resisting'
         | anytime there's any level of force involved specifically for
         | the body cams...
        
       | TechDebtDevin wrote:
       | Im Leaving the United States. I worked and lived in the Carribean
       | for three years. It was real freedom. Sure a lil dangerous if
       | you're an idiot, a little longer wait times for things, bad
       | roads, island time whatever. But there certainly wasnt a police
       | state.
       | 
       | While there is a degree of lawlessness, but there were times I
       | would see cops come to a bar after getting a call about someone
       | being too drunk, and theyd drive their car home for them and get
       | them home safe. The older Americans there would tell me it was
       | like how it used to be in the USA in the 70s
       | 
       | I miss it, I dont want to live in a technocratic police state. I
       | dont want to worry about a white van pulling up in front of my
       | house because I said something sarcastic online.
       | 
       | Edit: On second thought, I feel far more unsafe in the major US
       | city I live in than I ever did in the Carribean, not even
       | comparable. So theres that too.
        
         | K0balt wrote:
         | Come on over to the Dominican Republic. I've been here for 15
         | years, and I've had no problems running several projects from
         | here. In the Cibao region you'll find IMHO the best culture,
         | and Santiago has a little of everything, though it takes some
         | looking to find the gems. I prefer the mountains between
         | Santiago and Puerto Plata, close to everything but not in the
         | middle of anything. Above 1000m elevation the weather is cool
         | nights, warm days.
         | 
         | If you get here HMU if you want to talk about the third
         | industrial revolution and what we're working on to make it a
         | better ride for humans.
        
           | TechDebtDevin wrote:
           | I spent a month there working for a client at "caso de
           | campo". I really enjoyed the month. What was weird, I stayed
           | at a town outside (I'm not elite enough to stay at caso de
           | campo :P) forget the name but the whole town was just filled
           | with Italian expats. It has been on my list of potential
           | places.
           | 
           | However, the one thing I didn't like though was all Haitian
           | workers, I actually witnessed some pretty awful stuff (like
           | literal bloody fights over water bottles) inside caso de
           | campo where they virtually had Haitian slaves. I'm talking
           | guys standing behind me at dinner waiting to refill my water,
           | and that was their entire existence. Probably better than
           | living Haiti, but it made me feel uncomfortable. Not sure if
           | the rest of the DR is like that though, I didn't really leave
           | that area.
        
         | tristramb wrote:
         | 'In passing by the side of Mount Thai, Confucius came on a
         | woman who was weeping bitterly by a grave. The Master pressed
         | forward and drove quickly to her; then he sent Tze-lu to
         | question her. "Your wailing," said he, "is that of one who has
         | suffered sorrow on sorrow."She replied, "That is so. Once my
         | husband's father was killed here by a tiger. My husband was
         | also killed, and now my son has died in the same way." The
         | Master said, "Why do you not leave the place?" The answer was,
         | "There is no oppressive government here." The Master then said,
         | "Remember this, my children: oppressive government is more
         | terrible than tigers."'
         | 
         | The subject of this paper is the problem of ensuring that
         | government shall be less terrible than tigers.
         | 
         | --- From The Taming of Power by Bertrand Russell, 1938
        
           | smallmancontrov wrote:
           | ...and that was in 1938, when there was no such thing as an
           | AI panopticon.
        
             | lostlogin wrote:
             | It also came just before some particularly terrible
             | governments really hit their stride.
        
             | matt123456789 wrote:
             | And the original "Tyranny is Fiercer than a Tiger"
             | significantly predates even that!
        
           | jfengel wrote:
           | I wonder if her husband, son, and father in law would agree
           | with that conclusion.
        
             | nosianu wrote:
             | Yes? They stayed and did not leave. Confucius asking the
             | woman did not create that option. It was always there.
             | 
             | My personal thought would also be that one has
             | significantly higher chances to succeed against a tiger
             | than a government, including much more control over whether
             | a tiger attacks in the first place (for example, fences or
             | not going out alone would already improve your chances
             | significantly, which would do nothing against government
             | officials).
        
               | jfengel wrote:
               | I don't doubt that. But the story just demonstrates
               | survivor bias, literally. Surely there's a better way to
               | illustrate the point. As it is the obvious fallacy makes
               | me inherently skeptical of a conclusion that I'm
               | otherwise inclined to agree with.
        
               | giardini wrote:
               | nosianu says _" one has significantly higher chances to
               | succeed against a tiger than a government"_
               | 
               | I don't think so! A tiger will kill you in the blink of
               | an eye.
               | 
               | As for fences: while clearing land for the British
               | railway lines in India, it was sometimes necessary to
               | bring in skilled tiger hunters to eradicate these beasts.
               | In one attack, for example, a tiger jumped a high fence
               | (intended to keep tigers out) around a human encampment,
               | seized a victim, _jumped over the fence again carrying
               | his prey_ and ran away with the meal.
        
               | tokai wrote:
               | Please a village can at least try killing a tiger with
               | traps, poison, and weapons. They can do nothing to the
               | king.
        
         | Aurornis wrote:
         | > I dont want to worry about a white van pulling up in front of
         | my house because I said something sarcastic online.
         | 
         | I find it fascinating that people will genuinely worry about
         | this happening to them, despite it not happening, and then
         | openly prefer a place they describe as "a lil dangerous" and "a
         | degree of lawlessness"
         | 
         | This is the kind of thinking that happens when you build your
         | entire worldview around exaggerated headlines and online fear
         | mongering. When you go somewhere that isn't in the headlines
         | all of the time, you have to build your worldview around what
         | you see and the vibes you sense instead of the fear mongering
         | headlines. When a place described with words like dangerous and
         | lawless starts to sound like the safer alternative than a
         | country that is demonstrably safer, you're probably getting too
         | much of your information from internet sources designed to
         | trigger your senses of fear and rage for engagement.
         | 
         | Every time there's an anecdote with cognitive dissonance like
         | this (describing the lawless, "lil dangerous" place as feeling
         | safer) it comes down to getting perceptions of one community
         | through vibes and the other community through news headlines.
         | In this case, the description of the US as a technocratic
         | police state where people get thrown into a white van for
         | sarcastic online comments versus seeing some cops at a local
         | bar one time.
        
           | yupitsme123 wrote:
           | I agree with everything that you said but it's a "better the
           | devil you know" type of situation.
           | 
           | The vibe that many people have in the US is that things are
           | constantly in flux and that we have less and less control
           | over our lives and environments. Anything could happen.
           | 
           | Considering that, I could understand wanting to go somewhere
           | where there's a known quantity of danger and a known set of
           | rules for avoiding it.
        
           | TechDebtDevin wrote:
           | Ive been a resident of two countries and am a citzen of the
           | USA. 2 years Norway. 3 years Bahamas. Along with a lot of
           | work in Europe and Asia. So Ive witnessed a wide spectrum of
           | governments, and have been detained by all of these
           | governments at some point for reasons Im not going to speak
           | on.
           | 
           | Maybe its because im a citizen of the USA and they have the
           | ultimate power over me, but i felt the most terrified when
           | under their custody. Hell in the Bahamas the officials took
           | me to Burger King (in handcuffs lol). To be clear im not a
           | criminal I just have a wierd line of work that people
           | question.
        
           | TechDebtDevin wrote:
           | I also have spent 6 months in a USA jail for what ultimately
           | resulted in my pleading to a misdemeanor, and never was a
           | crime. My world view is likely a lot different than yours,
           | and the white vans do exist. They are here RIGHT NOW.
        
             | Aurornis wrote:
             | > and the white vans do exist. They are here RIGHT NOW.
             | 
             | The comment was that white vans would take them away for
             | posting something sarcastic online
        
               | noah_buddy wrote:
               | I think your mistake is believing that the development of
               | infrastructure for one purpose will be cleanly stopped at
               | a well-demarcated point once the original purpose is
               | served.
               | 
               | When you build the infrastructure for squads of goons to
               | kidnap people, then pour gasoline on the fire by
               | massively increasing their funding, suddenly, a whole lot
               | more people become "deportable."
        
               | Arainach wrote:
               | We have the government revoking visas for writing
               | articles critical of Israel, and we have white vans
               | grabbing people who the administration alleged no longer
               | have valid visas. This is all happening right now.
        
               | TechDebtDevin wrote:
               | I was jailed on a bullsh*t "hate speech" statute, because
               | I said the f slur to a cop (who turned out to be gay, my
               | PI proved this wasn't even true in my civil suit, but
               | that didn't matter, they stuck me with this, along with
               | some other cop related bs (said I coughed on him and
               | tried to give him covid, assault on a police officer)
               | This was the government trying to ruin my life because I
               | hurt a cops feelings. You clearly haven't dealt with
               | authorities much.
               | 
               | In my state there is no intent required, so if a word can
               | have multiple meanings in different contexts, the
               | government gets to decide how you intended to use that
               | word and what meaning you meant. So sorry, you're so
               | wrong. There isn't much difference from what i said to
               | this very annoying cop, and what a lot of people say
               | online. Also, this never would have happened if I had
               | said it to a regular person and not a cop.
               | 
               | edit: So yes, I literally was jailed and forced to admit
               | to a hate speech crime (alford plea) because of something
               | I said to a cop. And you think this is all in my head??
        
               | pjc50 wrote:
               | Ah yes, the UK does this kind of thing with Section 5
               | Public Order act making it basically illegal to swear in
               | front of cops.
               | 
               | Not quite the same thing as just saying something online,
               | although the US has now developed special police for
               | that. From the part of ""free speech"".
        
               | ashdksnndck wrote:
               | If I understand the story, sounds like you got prosecuted
               | for assault with a hate crime enhancement.
               | 
               | What do you think happens in the Dominican Republic if
               | you call a cop that? It says more about you and the US
               | that you thought you'd get away with it. I doubt there is
               | any country in the world where personally offending a cop
               | like that might not result in the cop abusing their power
               | over you.
        
               | giardini wrote:
               | _" In my state there is no intent required, so if a word
               | can have multiple meanings in different contexts, the
               | government gets to decide how you intended to use that
               | word and what meaning you meant. "_
               | 
               | By "my state" do you mean one of the United States of
               | America? Or are you speaking of somwhere outside the USA?
        
               | TechDebtDevin wrote:
               | The United States.
        
           | TechDebtDevin wrote:
           | tbh its wild you assumed my world view was curated by
           | headlines. You probably have had the softest, easiest life
           | and have never put your neck on the line in a way that might
           | result in you being locked in a cage by a government
           | official, so you welcome the white vans, because you don't
           | take enough risk in life for it to ever matter to you.
           | 
           | Wild, and offensive. How do you like it when people make
           | assumptions about you?
        
             | Aurornis wrote:
             | > tbh its wild you assumed my world view was curated by
             | headlines. You probably have had the softest, easiest life
             | and have never put your neck on the line
             | 
             | Ironic to make a comment about making assumptions and then
             | go on to make some wild ad hominem assumptions.
             | 
             | The news headlines I was referring to was the article we're
             | in the comment section discussing.
        
               | TechDebtDevin wrote:
               | Get out of here with "ad hominem", you know what you were
               | saying. Go back to less-wrong.
        
           | majormajor wrote:
           | The current state of the US is not that the secret police
           | would come dissapear you for being sarcastic online, but the
           | un-secret heavily-armed SWAT police could certainly show up
           | if your sarcasm pissed off the wrong person.
           | 
           | That ain't great.
           | 
           | Do you feel like the trend of policing in the US is going in
           | the direction of:
           | 
           | 1) less heavily harmed, more accountable, more community-
           | involved personal treatment
           | 
           | or
           | 
           | 2) more heavily armed, anonymous, opaque large bureaucracies
           | answering only to distant executives?
           | 
           | And which of those directions does the product in the linked
           | article point?
        
             | gilfoy wrote:
             | And who exactly is this happening to? Who are the wrong
             | people? Who are they swatting?
             | 
             | We all know exactly what is going down with immigration,
             | but vaguely alluding to that instead of just saying it
             | while pretending any given person is in danger would be
             | dishonest.
             | 
             | It's always like this though. Vague blurry imagery of
             | perceived threats, no details.
        
           | ok_dad wrote:
           | > I find it fascinating that people will genuinely worry
           | about this happening to them, despite it not happening
           | 
           | Oh, but it is. Lots of people are getting picked up for
           | online speech, the government is letting "their guys" off the
           | hook for open crimes, and it's escalating to talking openly
           | about imprisoning the other party.
           | 
           | We're there, it's fascism happening openly, and America isn't
           | what it never was anyways.
        
             | derektank wrote:
             | No US citizen has had a federal law enforcement abduct them
             | for making a sarcastic comment online (unless it was a
             | legal threat, which has never been tolerated).
             | 
             | The US residents and visa holders who it has happened to,
             | such as Mahmoud Khalil, are largely out of detention and,
             | in his case, in a position to file a tort claim against the
             | government of $20M dollars.
             | 
             | The current administration is a threat to the rule of law
             | and I have no doubt they wish they were not subject to it.
             | But they are, they have not attempted an auto-golpe, and
             | people harmed by the administration continue to have the
             | ability to seek redress through the courts. We are a little
             | over a year away from midterm elections, which will almost
             | certainly bring congressional impediments to executive
             | power as well, at the very least in the form of
             | investigations.
             | 
             | We in a dangerous period in US history, but it is not
             | unprecedented, and the outcome is not yet determined. We
             | are not in a fascist dictatorship today and, fortune
             | willing, we might not yet ever be.
        
               | Arainach wrote:
               | "It's illegal and you can press charges" doesn't save you
               | from being grabbed by a white van. It doesn't save you
               | from being shipped to a prison in another country and the
               | Trump Administration telling the courts "tough, we're not
               | bringing them back". It doesn't save you from the cops
               | "accidentally" killing or maiming you.
               | 
               | We are absolutely living under fascism right now.
        
           | doctorpangloss wrote:
           | While I don't think you should be downvoted... brother, maybe
           | the headlines aren't being exaggerated.
        
           | hughesjj wrote:
           | > I find it fascinating that people will genuinely worry
           | about this happening to them, despite it not happening
           | 
           | I mean, the "white van pulling up in front of a house" is
           | happening on the daily now [1], the current administration
           | has claimed they can suspend habeus corpus [2], they pick up
           | US citizens and legal immigrants in these things [3], and
           | they allegedly deny entry because of political reasons the
           | administration doesn't like [4] (+allegedly [5]).
           | 
           | I don't think the fear of getting disappeared by an
           | administration is unfounded, nor do I think we need to see
           | documented evidence of exactly that particular circumstance
           | happening before we're allowed to worry about it.
           | 
           | I also think the "lil dangerous" part is ironic, given most
           | of these "other" places aren't particularly dangerous, nor is
           | the US particularly safe as-is. "lil dangerous" and "degree
           | of lawlessness" are apt descriptions of the United States,
           | and has been for my entire lifetime.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=masked+ice+raids&udm=2
           | [2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-is-habeas-
           | corpus-... [3] https://abc7chicago.com/post/george-retes-
           | disabled-vet-us-ci... [4]
           | https://apnews.com/article/immigration-detainees-students-
           | oz... [5] https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/18/australian-
           | deported-o...
        
           | jfengel wrote:
           | I am manifestly certain it won't happen to me. I tick just
           | about every box: straight, white, male, native-born US,
           | healthy, moderately well off.
           | 
           | But I see it happening to others and that makes me upset. And
           | my intention to fight that might some day make me a target,
           | but that's not the core of it. The core is that it shouldn't
           | happen to anyone.
        
           | nkrisc wrote:
           | I mean, the president did just threaten to (somehow) revoke
           | the citizenship of a celebrity who disagreed with him online.
           | Based on what we've seen already, what's to stop them from
           | dubiously claiming to have revoked someone's (natural born)
           | citizenship and then deport them to somewhere before anyone
           | has time to argue anything before a judge?
           | 
           | There was a time I would have agreed with you, but now it
           | doesn't seem that implausible anymore.
        
           | leptons wrote:
           | >I find it fascinating that people will genuinely worry about
           | this happening to them, despite it not happening
           | 
           | Trump very recently suggested he would revoke Rosie
           | O'Donnell's US citizenship, _a natural born US citizen_ ,
           | because of things she's said that's (rightly) critical of
           | him. I have no doubt he will try to do it, and SCOTUS
           | probably won't stop him. _This is political retaliation, and
           | it 's absolutely abhorrent._
           | 
           | That's where we are. I have no doubt the "white vans" are
           | coming for people who speak out against the tyranny this
           | administration is foisting upon us. I have no doubt that this
           | very comment may even be used against me someday, as
           | ridiculous as that may sound to you right now.
        
           | jrm4 wrote:
           | I'm not sure why you're being downvoted so hard, it's a good
           | point.
           | 
           | I'm not thrilled with where we are and I'm very cautious, but
           | as a Black man in America the net _difference_ in my fear and
           | concern over my own government /police right now, as opposed
           | to e.g. during Biden or Obama, isn't huge.
        
           | crooked-v wrote:
           | The president of the US personally threatened to illegally
           | take away Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship because he doesn't
           | like her. That seems more 'lawless' to me than some third-
           | world countries.
        
             | giardini wrote:
             | But it's BS! He's blustering, merely provoking opponents
             | into chasing a figment of their imagination!
             | 
             | And so, here you are, wasting time responding to BS, when
             | your time and thoughts could be more usefully employed
             | elsewhere.
        
               | thisisit wrote:
               | How long will this "Nothing to see move on. He's just
               | blustering" excuse is going to be used before people
               | realize that this guy will try that even if it is
               | illegal? With the what has happened to immigration and
               | birthright citizen it doesn't seem far fetched. And it is
               | frankly insulting to tell people that they are wasting
               | time when they express real concern.
        
               | giardini wrote:
               | thisisit says: _"...this guy will try that even if it is
               | illegal... "_
               | 
               |  _How_ will he  "try that"? He hasn't done anything
               | illegal and, if he does, his own staff and the courts
               | will prevent him from doing it.
               | 
               | thisisit says: _" With the what has happened to
               | immigration..."_
               | 
               | They've slowed illegals entering the country and they've
               | begun to move immigrants out of the country. How is this
               | a problem?
               | 
               | I never cared much for birthright citizenship other than
               | for offspring of slavery but arguing about it hardly
               | seems a good argument for or against Trump.
        
               | lapphi wrote:
               | > How will he "try that"? He hasn't done anything illegal
               | and, if he does, his own staff and the courts will
               | prevent him from doing it.
               | 
               | Are we talking about convicted felon donald trump or some
               | other guy?
        
               | thisisit wrote:
               | > He hasn't done anything illegal and, if he does, his
               | own staff and the courts will prevent him from doing it.
               | 
               | Then you must be living under a rock. He is a convicted
               | felon who knowingly broke the law, his people who should
               | fulfil their fiduciary duty helped him.
               | 
               | > I never cared much for birthright citizenship other
               | than for offspring of slavery but arguing about it hardly
               | seems a good argument for or against Trump.
               | 
               | Yep. The goal post shifting Trump supporter. "I can't
               | refute this so let's go with "I don't care for it so not
               | a valid argument"".
        
               | VBprogrammer wrote:
               | You make it sound like some 4D chess ploy to "own the
               | libs". Everything I've seen is that it's just a natural
               | consequence of electing an 80 year old half senile
               | grandpa to arguably the most important role in the world.
        
         | rdm_blackhole wrote:
         | > I dont want to live in a technocratic police state
         | 
         | Unfortunately the police state mentality is spreading.
         | 
         | The attacks on encryption and the "need" to crackdown on
         | terrorism and CP gives wet dreams to a lot of government
         | officials who won't be satisfied until there is a camera in
         | every home and your phone snooping on you 24/7 and reporting
         | back to the cops all your crimes alleged or otherwise.
         | 
         | No government is immune. France, Australia, the UK, The EU,
         | they are all coming for our privacy and freedom of speech and
         | they will get them sooner or later.
         | 
         | They say history does not repeat but it often rhymes. I think a
         | lot of people have forgotten/never experienced what it's like
         | to live in a police state and the 2030s may just bring back
         | these memories for some and potentially introduce these
         | concepts to a new generation entirely.
        
           | timschmidt wrote:
           | This seems like as good a spot as any to drop https://en.wiki
           | pedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...
        
         | giardini wrote:
         | TechDebtdevin says "...how it used to be in the USA in the 70s"
         | 
         | In regard to drinking and driving the 70s were same as now in
         | my experience.
        
       | patrickhogan1 wrote:
       | This requires audio to work and appears to create more
       | transparency. You can request the audio recording to verify
       | accuracy. This will happen as a routine procedure from defense
       | attorneys. Any problems with the technology would be discovered
       | quickly and if the officer didn't do their job of correcting the
       | errors before the report is generated they would be torn apart.
        
       | troupo wrote:
       | When EU introduced its AI Act there was much gnashing of teeth
       | here at HN over "stifling of innovation" and "getting left behind
       | in technological backwater".
       | 
       | EU AI Act _specifically_ calls out and forbids such applications.
       | Of course, the state will do what the state will do, but there 's
       | an actual obstacle enshrined in law.
        
         | rdm_blackhole wrote:
         | And there is the right to privacy enshrined as well but that
         | has no bearing on what states will do ultimately.
         | 
         | The EU is in the midst of ending encryption and will soon
         | require lawful access to all your data by forcing providers to
         | bake in legal backdoors in OSes so that nobody can
         | bypass/deactivate them.
         | 
         | All of this done under the guise of protecting the children,
         | stopping misinformation(the ministry of truth is back) and
         | protect democracy (TM).
         | 
         | The AI act may be a good thing in some cases but we should all
         | stop pretending that the EU is not following in the footsteps
         | of the US when it comes to loss of privacy and restriction of
         | freedom of speech.
         | 
         | Many western countries are slowly sliding into wannabe
         | authoritarian regimes.
        
       | efitz wrote:
       | A lot of people worry about a Terminator style AI apocalypse. I
       | don't.
       | 
       | I worry that we've already created the AI apocalypse and that
       | this is what it looks like, along with extremist magnification on
       | social media.
       | 
       | I trust AI to be what is is- essentially a lot of math that
       | classisfies and predicts stuff, usually words, that the
       | prediction can be used generatively, and the classification stuff
       | can be used to identify stuff in various media.
       | 
       | What I don't trust is that people will use it responsibly. Hell,
       | I don't, when I'm vibe coding, but that's on me.
       | 
       | People are venal and self absorbed and busy and lazy and all the
       | other traits that lead to not using AI responsibly. And
       | businesses are amoral (not immoral) and want the shortest path to
       | revenue, with the least friction.
       | 
       | So of course police officers who want to be on patrol and did not
       | sign up to spend countless hours on reports, are going to let the
       | AI write it and call it good without proofreading.
       | 
       | We could pass a lot of laws trying to specify products that force
       | police to act reliably, or we could maybe just pass a law that
       | says that AI cannot be used to write police reports, but that
       | clearly labeled AI generated transcriptions and summaries may be
       | attached unedited to police reports, if and only if the original
       | recordings are also preserved as evidence.
       | 
       | And police departments that keep body camera and car camera
       | footage might be ease up on the report writing and only require
       | officers to annotate it with their impressions, but otherwise let
       | the record speak for itself.
        
       | squirrel wrote:
       | Creative lawyers will be all over this. First you get the officer
       | to testify that AI helped write the report, then you call the AI
       | as a witness. When the judge tosses that, you start issuing
       | subpoenas to everyone you can find at OpenAI and Axon.
       | 
       | As others point out, the actual bodycam footage will be
       | definitively probative for the events it records. But there are
       | plenty of cases where the report itself leads to later actions
       | that may be tortious or criminal, and finding out who's to blame
       | for the exact wording used is highly relevant.
       | 
       | Example: AI incorrectly reports that during A's arrest, A made
       | incriminating allegations about B. Based on the report, the
       | police get a warrant and search B's house. When it turns out B is
       | innocent, B sues the department, and when the report turns up
       | during discovery, we're off to the circus.
        
       | ingohelpinger wrote:
       | but hosters need to save my ip and what not for 1000 years when i
       | surf burger recipes.
        
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