Comment by tlogan
17 days ago
This has nothing to do with AI.
There are also a few questions that remain unanswered:
- Did she have previous arrests, and did they use booking photos to identify her? I found someone named Angela Lipps who was arrested in 2001, 2003, 2017, and 2019. The 2017 arrest was for a probation violation: https://archive.ph/CpmXu The 2019 arrest was for public intoxication: https://archive.ph/yjFL9
- Another confusing detail is that she was in jail for four months without being extradited. That is quite unusual, unless the local authorities were holding her on unrelated charges.
So this news story seems to have nothing to do with AI. It is also very light on details about the case and what actually happened. And actual criminal case here.
Appealing to authority ("The AI said it was her!") is absolutely a problem.
No. I think the core issue is that they used her 2019 booking photo (a mugshot) from a public intoxication arrest. I am not sure whether a photo like that is reliable :)
In the end, the detective compared the booking photo with the camera footage and concluded they were the same person, then presented that to the judge.
I also wonder what her “probation” was for. Maybe she once wrote a bad check and got into trouble, which might have made the detective more inclined to believe it was her.
Anyway, this does not appear to be an AI issue at all.
But it is nice scary story to remind us not to be lazy and trust it unconditionally.
Yes. Appealing to authority ("The AI said it was her!") is absolutely a problem.
I'm not dismissing the rest of what you are saying, but I don't think you should dismiss appeals to authority being a factor, either.