Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer
New Facial Recognition Software Predicts You’re A Criminal Based On Your Looks
Authored by Alan Macleod via MintPressNews.com,
A team from the University of Harrisburg, PA, has developed automated computer facial recognition software that they claim can predict with 80 percent accuracy and “no racial bias” whether a person is likely going to be a criminal, purely by looking at a picture of them.
“By automating the identification of potential threats without bias, our aim is to produce tools for crime prevention, law enforcement, and military applications,” they said, declaring that they were looking for “strategic partners” to work with to implement their product.
In a worrying use of words, the team in their own press release, move from referring to those the software recognizes as being “likely criminals” to “criminals” in the space of just one sentence, suggesting they are confident in the discredited racist pseudoscience of phrenology they appear to have updated for the 21st century.
Public reaction to the project was less than enthusiastic, judging by comments left on Facebook, which included “Societies have been trying to push the idea of ‘born criminals’ for centuries,” “and this isn’t profiling because……?” and “20 percent getting tailed by police constantly because they have the ‘crime face.’” Indeed, the response was so negative that the university pulled the press release from the internet. However, it is still visible using the Internet Wayback Machine.
While the research team claims to be removing bias and racism from decision making, leaving it up to a faceless algorithm, those who write the code, and those who get to decide who constitutes a criminal in the first place, certainly do have their own biases. Why are the homeless or people of color who “loiter” on sidewalks criminalized, but senators and congresspersons who vote for wars and regime change operations not? And who is more likely to be arrested? Wall Street executives doing cocaine in their offices or working-class people smoking marijuana or crack? The higher the level of a person in society, the more serious and harmful their crimes become, but the likelihood of an arrest and a custodial sentence decreases. Black people are more likely to be arrested for the same crime as white people and are sentenced to longer stays in prison, too. Furthermore, facial recognition software is notorious for being unable to tell people of color apart, raising further concerns.
Crime figures are greatly swayed by whom the police choose to follow and what they decide to prioritize. For example, a recent study found 97.5 percent of Brooklyn residents arrested for breaking social distancing laws were people of color. Meanwhile, an analysis of 95 million traffic stops found that police officers were far more likely to stop black people during the daytime when their race could be determined from afar. As soon as dusk hit, the disparity greatly diminished, as a “veil of darkness” saved them from undue harassment, according to researchers. Thus, the population of people convicted of crimes does not necessarily correspond to the population that commits them.
The 2002 hit movie Minority Report is set in a future world where the government’s pre-crime division stops all murders well before they happen, with future criminals locked up preemptively. Even if accurate, is an 80 percent accuracy rate worth risking the creation of a dystopian Minority Report-style society where people are monitored and arrested for pre-crimes?
Phrenology, the long-abandoned study of the size and shape of the head, has a long and sordid history of dangerous racist and elitist pseudoscience. For instance, Cesare Lombroso’s 1876 book, Criminal Man, told students that large jaws and high cheekbones were a feature of “criminals, savages and apes,” and was a sure sign of the “love of orgies and the irresistible craving for evil for its own sake, the desire not only to extinguish life in the victim, but to mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh, and drink its blood.” Meanwhile, rapists nearly always have jug ears, delicate features, swollen lips, and hunchbacks. Lombroso himself was a professor in psychiatry and criminal anthropology and his book were taught in universities for decades. To Lombroso, it was almost impossible for a good-looking person to commit a serious crime.
The latest technological development from the University of Harrisburg appears to be an updated, “algorithmic phrenology,” repackaging a dangerous idea for the 21st century, all the more noteworthy because they are trying to sell it to law enforcement as an unbiased tool helping society.
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I wonder how they’ll read this.
Will the National Felons League be overlooked then…because raciss ?
Arrest warrants issued for 2 NFL players accused of armed robbery in Florida
Deandre Baker of the New York Giants and Quinton Dunbar of the Seattle Seahawks are alleged to have taken money and valuables from attendees at a party.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/florida-police-issue-arrest-warrants-2-nfl-players-accused-armed-n1207436
Phrenology.
Long abandoned, but in need of a revival?
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?156968-sloped-foreheads-psychopaths-lack-of-self-control-!&s=0691a822156febb3101c3e3279ced9a6
This has to be a joke. 80% accurate? Lets run the program on all the congress critters and see what the software suggests. My guess would be………”0″.
This suggests that you may be a criminal without committing a crime. This is a presumption of guilt and you have to prove yourself innocent. This is not a justice system. This would be tyranny at its finest.
Stupid, politically correct laws are tailored to create potential felons. Calling it algorithmic phrenology is right.
Politicians will never allow this technology. Lawyers will not as well.
If there is money in it or an exemption for certain classes of folks, it will be allowed. Who would have thought we would be quarantining healthy folks to protect infected folks?
And who is this “team” from Harrisburg PA?
Ashby has a BS in Psych, an MS in Psych and a PhD in Psych…he’s Bill Murray in Ghostbusters. https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/ddmlab/papers/AshbyCV.pdf
Sadeghian has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Iran, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Iran and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from UNY at Binghamton. https://harrisburgu.edu/profile/rsadeghian/
Korn…well, he was a cop and there is little about him online.
All 3 individuals either have questionable credentials or conflicts of interest or both. Anyone can go play around with Tensor Flow and start claiming to be a machine learning/deep learning/AI guru. I would suggest anyone intersted take the “class” on tensor flow at google (https://developers.google.com/machine-learning/problem-framing/?utm_source=googleAI&utm_medium=card-image&utm_campaign=training-hub&utm_term=&utm_content=problem-framing) – it takes an hour for the first one and gives a decent, plain language explanation of how machine learning/deep learning/AI works.
After about 10 minutes, anyone with a brain will understand why ideas like this can be made to express anything the creators of the algo’s want. It is plainly stated a few pages in that this type of use of ML will not provide decent results – ML can provide good results for operations like sorting of components based on size, color, shape, blemishes, etc. for ordering those things in a specific way. It will not identify human behavior patterns based on human shape (for example), but might provide correlations that appear to be causations.
The 80% accuracy number is, almost assuredly, pure bullshit or it’s built on data that was garbage to begin with or the patterns that are being detected are, again, correlations that are not really accurate.
Soooo my looks change when I stop being a criminal. Or they all look like Pelosi?
Looks like the bugaloo is about to go live.
Arme black men walking through the white neighborhood where AhmaudArbery was murdered pic.twitter.com/9qe1UtKIsP
— Brother tyrone X (@tyrone_brother) May 11, 2020
Oh, what could go wrong?
It’s funny how THEY seem to glamorize “Minority Report” without mentioning that the actual conflict in the story involves HOW such a system could be gamed.
Facial Recognition, gait, voice, location history, “likes”, purchase history, age, medical history, banking history, relationships, will all be attached to the blockchain in some fashion eventually, as they are all collected by various entities now and full combination is burdensome. The Chinesse have largely done this, and leadership in the West are envious and unable to advance.
The plan seems to be totalitarian technocracy, store digital inputs to digital SSN via blockchain architecture and turn over to various versions of AI(as it evolves) for management and directives.
AI will corner the market on “Whats Best”, for any desired input eventually, it will come down to who has the most influence on the imputs. And the imputs will soon advance any biobarrier and be direct, people will line up to have their phones installed “inside”.
Internal Wifi control of devices with your thoughts will be too sexy for masses to refuse,and unfortunately its close, the few of us that do not will quickly become Luddites. The people who join or forced into this AI guided system will become a formidable force if not the dominant force, transporting humanity to the next paradigm. The modern version of Guns Germs and Steel, as the AI eliminates or marginalizes any not plugged in to the Program.
Black people everywhere be like WTF?
“Living while blinking” is a new meme
Red flag laws combine with minority report, every white person with a job everywhere be looking over their shoulder for the po po
People wear full face masks claim they fear a virus just to get groceries so they are not arrested for looking like a criminal
Black people everywhere with hoodies in 103 degree temps be like what i an doin nuffin. Screams at the po po to go arrest that white dude over there because his eyelashes are similar to the criminals in the study….