I feel like this article is discrediting AI to shift blame away from the failure of law enforcement and governing bodies, and place it on AI. It literally says in the article it didn’t work because the shooter didn’t take out his weapon or use it in view of cameras, but when the cops came and drew their weapons it immediately worked. So it sounds like the AI works fine and we want to blame something other than bad policies for school shootings…
The AI doesn’t work fine if it can only tell you there’s a shooting while a shooting is taking place. It’s a waste of resources and on its face is stupid and useless. It might be working as intended, it might be working to its capabilities. But that doesn’t mean it should be there in the first place.
I don’t blame the AI for not doing better here. I blame it for being snake oil and I blame those in charge for buying it and I blame society for constantly creating this fucking scenario of doing anything but what is needed.
The basic concept isn’t a bad idea, assuming it works and you already have the cameras. If it ran locally at a negligible cost, I’d say it would be a potentially useful tool. But even then, it wouldn’t solve the problems, just help identify them more quickly, especially in situations where a gun is in the school but isn’t being fired yet. Less useful for an active shooter, more useful for spotting someone flashing a gun, brandishing, showing off to their friends, or even selling.
It would be like a smoke detector, good to have but only as part of a larger plan, and also not something you should be dumping a ton of money into.
I don’t think the smoke detector comparison is entirely valid as smoke and fire don’t make audible noise in the range of 150dB. Funnily enough smoke detectors only emit 85dB which is 65 times quieter than a gun shot (decibels are logarithmic).
Or like that list of scenarios I mentioned in the post you replied to.
flashing a gun, brandishing, showing off to their friends, or even selling.
These things don’t happen very often, but then, neither do fires.
Let me put it like this: If someone was looking at the security cameras and saw a person waving a gun around, do you think that they should say something, or should they just ignore it? If the answer is that they should say something, then there is at least some value in detecting the presence of a gun. After that, it’s just a matter of how effective and reliable the system would be, and what it costs to implement. But I’m not arguing that there are any worthwhile systems in existence, only that such a system could have value.
Admittedly not having read the article but I think the idea for the AI is not really to stop or alert anyone to an active school shooting. Maybe it could give a little heads up depending on how the shooter starts.
I think the bigger idea is for it to pick up firearms a kid might flash or have brought in to show off or otherwise brandish but not use at the time. That way you can intervene before a gun gets used but that’s just my theory.
Agree on society though, it’s very obvious the proliferation of firearms and ease of procuring one is a huge contributor to school shootings and gun violence in general. God forbid we try to rein that in. Let’s just treat guns like cars. I have to get a license to drive a car because of how easy it is to kill myself or others with an automobile. When I turn 18 I can go buy an AR-15 with a simple run through a fed background check - maybe not even that, depending on the state and where you buy it - and waltz out the same day with a tool specifically made to kill people. No training, no oversight, no lessons just here’s a tool to kill other humans and have fun!
I feel like this article is discrediting AI to shift blame away from the failure of law enforcement and governing bodies, and place it on AI. It literally says in the article it didn’t work because the shooter didn’t take out his weapon or use it in view of cameras, but when the cops came and drew their weapons it immediately worked. So it sounds like the AI works fine and we want to blame something other than bad policies for school shootings…
The AI doesn’t work fine if it can only tell you there’s a shooting while a shooting is taking place. It’s a waste of resources and on its face is stupid and useless. It might be working as intended, it might be working to its capabilities. But that doesn’t mean it should be there in the first place.
I don’t blame the AI for not doing better here. I blame it for being snake oil and I blame those in charge for buying it and I blame society for constantly creating this fucking scenario of doing anything but what is needed.
The basic concept isn’t a bad idea, assuming it works and you already have the cameras. If it ran locally at a negligible cost, I’d say it would be a potentially useful tool. But even then, it wouldn’t solve the problems, just help identify them more quickly, especially in situations where a gun is in the school but isn’t being fired yet. Less useful for an active shooter, more useful for spotting someone flashing a gun, brandishing, showing off to their friends, or even selling.
It would be like a smoke detector, good to have but only as part of a larger plan, and also not something you should be dumping a ton of money into.
I don’t think the smoke detector comparison is entirely valid as smoke and fire don’t make audible noise in the range of 150dB. Funnily enough smoke detectors only emit 85dB which is 65 times quieter than a gun shot (decibels are logarithmic).
Which is why I said that this would be less useful for active shooters and more useful for other scenarios.
Like finger guns on the playground or a food fight in the cafeteria?
Or like that list of scenarios I mentioned in the post you replied to.
These things don’t happen very often, but then, neither do fires.
Let me put it like this: If someone was looking at the security cameras and saw a person waving a gun around, do you think that they should say something, or should they just ignore it? If the answer is that they should say something, then there is at least some value in detecting the presence of a gun. After that, it’s just a matter of how effective and reliable the system would be, and what it costs to implement. But I’m not arguing that there are any worthwhile systems in existence, only that such a system could have value.
Admittedly not having read the article but I think the idea for the AI is not really to stop or alert anyone to an active school shooting. Maybe it could give a little heads up depending on how the shooter starts.
I think the bigger idea is for it to pick up firearms a kid might flash or have brought in to show off or otherwise brandish but not use at the time. That way you can intervene before a gun gets used but that’s just my theory.
Agree on society though, it’s very obvious the proliferation of firearms and ease of procuring one is a huge contributor to school shootings and gun violence in general. God forbid we try to rein that in. Let’s just treat guns like cars. I have to get a license to drive a car because of how easy it is to kill myself or others with an automobile. When I turn 18 I can go buy an AR-15 with a simple run through a fed background check - maybe not even that, depending on the state and where you buy it - and waltz out the same day with a tool specifically made to kill people. No training, no oversight, no lessons just here’s a tool to kill other humans and have fun!
How does that make any sense?