Artificial intelligence (AI) is quite the buzzword these days, and there are a lot of things it can do. Mostly, though, it seems to be more of a gimmick than anything else, but what happens when people trust their lives to AI?
Well, things can happen.
What people call AI isn't really AI, at least not as we science fiction geeks might think of it. It's machine learning, which takes a lot of data and tries to extrapolate a response based on that. However, with AI, "garbage in/garbage out" holds even more true than most other aspects of computer programming.
A prime example of that happened in Maryland, where a student was handcuffed over a bag of Doritos:
Armed police handcuffed and searched a student at a high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, this week after an AI-driven security system flagged the teen's empty bag of chips as a possible firearm.
Baltimore County officials are now calling for a review of how Kenwood High School uses the AI gun detection system and why the teen ended up in handcuffs despite school safety officials quickly determining there was no weapon.
"They made me get on my knees, put my hands behind my back, and cuffed me," Kenwood student Taki Allen told CNN affiliate WBAL, describing what happened Monday evening when police arrived at the school while he was waiting with friends for a ride home after football practice.
"They searched me, and they figured out I had nothing. Then, they went over to where I was standing and found a bag of chips on the floor," Allen said.
He described a distressing scene with a heavy police response.
"The first thing I was wondering was, was I about to die? Because they had a gun pointed at me," Allen told WBAL, saying about "eight cop cars" pulled up to the school.
"I was just holding a Doritos bag - it was two hands and one finger out, and they said it looked like a gun," Allen told WBAL.
Look, the whole "I was standing on the corner, minding my own business" thing is a bit of a meme, but sometimes, people really are minding their own business when bad things happen. Based on what we know, this sure looks like one of them. It was a bag of Doritos. The police found no weapon at all, even though he had no reason to suspect he'd need to ditch it until they showed up.
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In other words, this kid was innocent, and the AI system screwed it up.
I have no issue with building AI systems that can help prevent school shootings. I think that, in time, technology will be good enough for it to be a useful tool. The problem is that it's not there yet and is still being deployed on school campuses across the country. It's being trusted to a high degree, which this response kind of shows, and it doesn't have a great track record.
New York City tried this with the subway system, and it failed to work correctly, but it's going to work in some random high school in Maryland?
Luckily, this was nothing but a terrifying experience for the young man.
Maybe next time, he should stick to Ruffles.
