ourmandave

Police used AI facial recognition to wrongly arrest TN woman for crimes in ND

https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/29/us/angela-lipps-ai-facial-recognition

Police used AI facial recognition to arrest a Tennessee woman for crimes committed in a state she says she’s never visited

A Tennessee grandmother spent more than five months in jail after police used an AI facial recognition tool to link her to crimes committed in North Dakota – a state she says she’d never been to before.

CNN
Mar 29 at 2:20pmWeb
Show threadjqpabc12319h ago
AI is a liability issue waiting to happen. And this is just another example.
Show threadgaryfirestorm18h ago
It’s a tool. Used incorrectly will lead to errors. Just like a hammer, used incorrectly could hit the users finger.
Show threadhappytoexplain18h ago

There is enormous variability in how hard a tool is to use correctly, how likely it is to go wrong, and how severe the consequences are. AI has a wide range on all those variables because its use cases vary so widely compared to a hammer.

The use case here is police facial recognition. Not hitting nails. The parent wasn't saying "AI is a liability" with no context.

Show threadmikkupikku18h ago

When somebody uses a tool to hurt somebody, they need to be held accountable. If I smack you with a hammer, that needs to be prosecuted. Using AI is no different.

The problem here is incidental to the tool; it was done by the cops and therefore nobody will be held accountable.

Show threadsuzzer9918h ago
Dynamite is a tool. But we don't hand it out to anyone who wants to play with it.
Show threadmikkupikku18h ago
We used to until quite recently. Anybody could buy dynamite at the hardware store. We had to end this because of criminals using it to hurt people.
Show threadjqpabc12318h ago
Look for AI to follow a similar trajectory over time.
Show threadmikkupikku18h ago
Yes, regulation is inevitable.
Show threadGaryBluto18h ago
Impossible at this point. You cannot download dynamite.
Show threadskeeter202018h ago
AI feels closer to a firearm than a hammer when accessing law enforcement's ability to quickly do massive, unrecoverable harm.
Show threadjqpabc12318h ago

Only one small little problem --- there is no way to tell if you are using it "correctly".

The only way to be sure is to not use it.

Using it basically boils down to, "Do you feel lucky?".

The Fargo police didn't get lucky in this case. And now the liability kicks in.

Show threadtgv18h ago
This tool, however, is specifically built for mass surveillance. It serves no other purpose. The tool is broken, and everybody knows it. The tool makers are at least as guilty as those who use it.
Show threadcyanydeez18h ago
The tool, like Google search, is likely biased towards returning results regardless of confidence.
Show threadmitchbob18h ago

Earlier discussion (405 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47356968

Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition | Hacker News

Show threadcasey218h ago
Now cruel people wield a two-tiered shield. It's not an accident that this happened to a woman, but make no mistake they are coming for men next.
Show threadjstanley18h ago
You think they deliberately chose to do this to a woman? Why?
Show threadcyanydeez18h ago

Probably just reading the room, with States like texas making abortions illegal and allowing random citizens from enforcing that.

Famously, abortions are a woman thing.

Anyway, looking through the facts, it's just some random woman. There's better evidence that these facial recognition systems are much worse at minorities rather than genders.

Interesting biases are own-gendeR:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11841357/

Racial bias:

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/unmasking-bias...

Miss rates:

https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10358566

Although you can probably interpret the facts differently, we've seen how any search function gets enshittified: Once people get used to searching for things, they tend to select something that returns results vs something that fails to return results.

Rather than the user blaming themselves, they blame the searcher. As such, any search system overtime will bias towards returning search (eg, Outlook), rather than accuracy.

So if these systems easily miss certain classes of people, women, minorities, they'll more likely be surfaced as inaccurate matches rather than men who'll have a higher confidence of being screened out.

That's how I interpret this 2 second commment.

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