Police in England installed an AI camera system along a major road. It caught almost 300 drivers in its first 3 days.::An AI camera system installed along a major road in England caught 300 offenses in its first 3 days.There were 180 seat belt offenses and 117 mobile phone
Expansion of the surveillance state, you go uk.
The DEA in the US has surveillance on every highway exit. If you drive on an interstate, you are logged.
Photos flagged by the AI are then sent to a person for review.
If an offense was correctly identified, the driver is then sent either a notice of warning or intended prosecution, depending on the severity of the offense.
The AI just “identifying” offenses is the easy part. It would be interesting to know whether the AI indeed correctly identified 300 offenses or if the person reviewing the AI’s images acted on 300 offenses. That’s potentially a huge difference and would have been the relevant part of the news.
Am I the only one who considers the text on the camera car (“HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE”) a bad joke?
This will get shut down the first time some politician gets caught receiving road head and the pictures leak.
Why are people saying this is a hypersurveillance dystopian nightmare? Guys, you are still in public! The only difference between this and having police officers sitting there and looking is this is much cheaper and more efficient. The recordings are still being sent to a human being for review.
The problem is the whole “give an inch, they take a mile.” We don’t know what rights this may take away from us in the future. So in the now, always question
Yeah I understand this argument. In my mind there is no anonymity when driving, (and in my mind there shouldn’t be) and the responsibility you have as a driver have that makes this permissible.
A valid and reasonable point. The problem is that often it spills out of it’s original intent. The “think of children” argument springs to mind
The only difference between this and having police officers sitting there and looking is this is much cheaper and more efficient.
Sure, but that’s a huge problem, because the legal system wasn’t actually designed for perfectly efficient enforcement. It is important that people be able to get away with breaking the law most of the time. If all of the tens of thousands of laws on the books were always enforced we would all be in prison and bankrupt from fines. Some laws are just bad too, and the way they get repealed is when enough people get away with breaking them for long enough to build political momentum for it.
Also, it isn’t like they are going to stop at using scaled-up AI surveillance just to enforce seatbelt use and texting while driving, there is way too much potential for abuse with this sort of tech. For example if there are these sorts of cameras all over, networked together, anyone with access to them can track just about everything you are doing with no way to opt out. Even if you aren’t doing anything wrong the feeling that you are always being watched is oppressive and has chilling effects.
A day in your life must be horrible, friend.
I love threads like these because it really shows how flexible opinions are, post about ai surveillance state and everyone is against it but post about car drivers getting fined for not wearing a seatbelt and everyone loves it.
This is a weird phenomenon. Feels a bit like how focusing on “welfare queens” / “dole bludgers” can pave the way for similar privacy erosion (and welfare cuts) even though its a tiny percentage of the people. Seems a short hop away from “if you’ve got nothing to hide…”
Seatbelts I don’t really care about, because with that people mostly just affect themselves (or others in the same car), but for other infractions it makes sense.
The real issue is whether you can trust that the data will only be used for its intended purpose, as right now there are basically no good mechanisms to prevent misuse.
If we had cameras where you could somehow guarantee that - no access for reason other than stated, only when flagged or otherwise by court order, all access to footage logged with the audit log being publicly available, independent system flagging suspicious accesses to any footage, etc. - it wouldn’t be too bad.
Compared to all the private cameras that exist in cars these days…
In it’s current form it’s good technology. It’s all fine as long as you’re chasing after crimes we all agree are bad* It’s the slippery slope I’m worried about. Just a matter of time untill this is going to be used for something malicious we don’t agree with.
*I don’t care if front seat passengers wear a seatbelt or not as long as they’re adults.
I just wish they would have one where I live to fine all the people using the HOV lane who aren’t supposed to be
Then we watch the numbers plummet and see there’s only actually 5% of people using the lane and finally see how useless the hiv lane is so we can just make it a regular third lane.
The HOV lane is supposed to look empty. If it was packed full of cars, carpooling wouldn’t have any advantage because you wouldn’t go any faster.
I thought the advantage of carpooling was saving money on gas and car maintenance. Also, environment.
It doesn’t work that well around here, cause there’s inevitably that one car that refuses to go faster than the rest of the traffic that it’s separated from. Or slows down to 10mph when the rest of the highway is stop and go, despite there being a barrier. Then someone gets rear ended because no one was expecting the lane to be going 10mph (and were on their phone), and the accident closes down the lane entirely
Basically, by me, the HOV lane is slower than traffic 90% of the time. Even in stop and go, because that lane is actually the one containing the accident causing the traffic.
Well, uhh, sounds like you could use some more traffic enforcement there. Maybe with AI and cameras ;)
Surely the ultimate come away from that is will not ok with people breaking the law and we’re not ok with AI taking people’s jobs. There is no conflict here
So you think most people like the idea of a surveillance state automaticly enforcing it’s every whim with perfect efficiency?
I’m pretty sure that’s something pretty much universally disliked
@L4s People don’t want to get caught breaking the law. Perhaps others wouldn’t like fighting false positives.
Solve that with lower fines and a suitably easy way to challenge them.Oh, this can only end in tears.
And just by chance does anyone know what the damage is done to society by punishing victimless crimes?
Ah yes, the famously victimless crime of using your phone while driving. Honestly screw anybody who does that, they deserve to be ticketed each time, cause each time they might kill somebody.
I literally watched cops driving while on their phone everyday after it was made illegal. Nothing was done, Nothing changed, they hand out tickets while breaking the same rules. Might kill someone is a precrime, a issue with these tickets in this case is that without the AI camera nothing would have been seen (literally victimless). If someone crashes into anything while on their phone the chances it will be used in prosecution is low.
I don’t think texting while driving is a good idea, like not wearing a seatbelt. However this is offloading a lot to AI, distracted driving is not well defined and considering the nuances I don’t want to leave any part to AI. Here is an example: eating a bowl of soup while operating a vehicle would be distracted right? What if the soup was in a cup? What if the soup was made of coffee beans?
I literally watched cops driving while on their phone everyday after it was made illegal. Nothing was done, Nothing changed, they hand out tickets while breaking the same rules.
I mean yeah, fuck the police :) Seems like we’re in agreement here.
Might kill someone is a precrime, a issue with these tickets in this case is that without the AI camera nothing would have been seen (literally victimless). If someone crashes into anything while on their phone the chances it will be used in prosecution is low.
Using your fucking phone while driving is the crime. This isn’t some “thought police” situation. Put the phone away, and you won’t get the ticket. It’s that simple. We don’t need to wait for a person to mow down a pedestrian in order to punish them for driving irresponsibly.
In the same spirit, if a person gets drunk and drives home, and they don’t kill somebody – well that’s a crime and they should be punished for it.
And if you can’t handle driving responsibly, then the privilege of driving on public roads should be revoked.
I don’t think texting while driving is a good idea, like not wearing a seatbelt. However this is offloading a lot to AI, distracted driving is not well defined and considering the nuances I don’t want to leave any part to AI. Here is an example: eating a bowl of soup while operating a vehicle would be distracted right? What if the soup was in a cup? What if the soup was made of coffee beans?
This is such a weird ad absurdum argument. Nobody is telling some ML system “make a judgment call on whether the coffee bean soup is a distraction.” The system is identifying people violating a cut-and-dried law: using their phone while driving, or not wearing a seatbelt. Assuming it can do it in an unbiased way (which is a huge if, to be fair), then there’s no slippery slope here.
For what it’s worth, I do worry about ML system bias, and I do think the seatbelt enforcement is a bit silly: I personally don’t mind if a person makes a decision that will only impact their own safety. I care about the irresponsible decisions that people make affecting my safety, and I’d be glad for some unbiased enforcement of the traffic rules that protect us all.
The issue is this has no way to judge context, someone playing music on their phone though the car audio (super common now) tapping the phone to ignore a call is just as much a crime as texting a novel to an ex. And you are kidding yourself if you think almost every person driving for a living is not at some level forced to use their phone by their company (I was). This is just more AI solutions looking for a problem, I would much rather have someone pulled over when driving erratically then the person getting an automated ticket 3 weeks after mowing down a pedestrian.
someone playing music on their phone though the car audio (super common now) tapping the phone to ignore a call is just as much a crime as texting a novel to an ex.
They are all crimes. Set up your music before you go, or use voice command. Ignore the call with voice command or just let it go to voicemail. Lol. It’s not hard.
And you are kidding yourself if you think almost every person driving for a living is not at some level forced to use their phone by their company (I was)
This is a great of the strength of this system: this company will find its drivers and vehicles getting ticketed a lot, and they’ll have to come up with a way to allow drivers to do their jobs without interacting with their phones will moving at high speeds.
I would much rather have someone pulled over when driving erratically then the person getting an automated ticket 3 weeks after mowing down a pedestrian.
The camera doesn’t magically remove traffic enforcement humans from the road. They can still pull over the obviously drunk/erratic driver.
I mean yeah, fuck the police
But love police cameras and the police enforcing them?
Police cameras are not police. And the laws being enforced is also not police. Supporting them while not supporting the police force misuse of power is not a contradiction like you are implying.
BOOT LICKER
Fuck them and their law.
Then are you a criminal boot licker since you seem to hate nuance so much? Do you cheer for murderers and rapists everytime the police try to enforce the law?
Not wearing seatbelts and fucking around with a phone are hardly victimless crimes and those laws that punish such offenses were written in blood. Never understood people taking safety regulations lightly. It’s not a fucking suggestion.
Who is the victim of not wearing a seatbelt?
Is it one of those ‘you’re not allowed to do things that only affect you because we’re a society’ type things where we should ban video games and sweet foods too?
I guess it could be argued that everybody via higher potential expense via NHS?
And the other part, mobile phones, is certainly not victimless crime.
I wonder constantly how in this day and age people still don’t use hands free either in-car, speaker, or BT systems if they really MUST be talking “all the time”.
Other passengers in the car, for one. The driver losing consciousness due to hitting their head on the steering wheel or dashboard from an initial impact because of not wearing the seat belt now becomes an out-of-control vehicle that can involve anybody in the vicinity of the impact. There are plenty of victims if you just think for a sec.
What exactly happens with the car after the initial hit?
If the impact was not straight on, a car gets redirected, usually towards pedestrians and other cars. A still conscious driver can prevent more damage from occurring.
Fuck ai and cameras and uk.
My main problem with this is, that this becomes like the huge online behemoths like youtube etc. I think most people have seen incidents where youtube cancelled a channel or applied copyright incorrectly, and getting a human to review things is next to impossible. The reason is clear, the sheer amount of content breaching the rules is too big to cost efficiently deal with by humans.
One camera catching 300 people in 72 hours. We don’t see how many it triggered, how many were reviewed and found to be false positives.
The problem is going to be if a whole police force takes it up, or it goes national. The amount of hits generated would be far beyond the ability to confirm with humans. I see it going a similar way to youtube. They just let the AI fine people. You report it as wrong, so they send your petition to another AI that pretends to be human and denies you again. The only way to clear things up is to take it to court. But, now the court system is being flooded so they deny people the right to a court case and the fixed penalties will be automatically applied.
This is the dystopia I fear. Actually catching people committing driving crimes? I don’t have a problem with that. Aside from maybe the increasing number of driving crimes coupled with the knowledge these cameras exist could lead to less concentration while people make sure they’re sitting upright, looking attentive, eyes straight ahead hands at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock. Did I indicate for that lane change back there? I guess that remains to be seen.
Cornwall outsourced mobile speed cameras to a private company a while ago, and realised that they, and the company, we’re making money hand over just, and due to Cornwall’s number of tourists, much of that money was coming from outside Cornwall. This feels like a development of that idea. Ethics and everything aside, if they can find a way to roll this out further and increase the flow of money into the councils coffers, they will
Using AI for this is so stupid. There will be a lot of false negatives and positives.
I’m not against this. I think the fact that car deaths are skyrocketing in the US and the UK is even more absurd since modern cars are supposedly “safer” with all of their safety tech. Plus how are people still doing this fucking shit when death from dangerous driving has been a thing in the news forever now? It’s like people need even more stricter rules to keep them in line instead of thinking like a reasonable adult.
For reference, in Switzerland deaths/major injuries from traffic accidents have steadily dropped since the '70s. Thanks to, as you mention, better car safety tech.
But there has also been a great number of speed cameras and lower alcohol tolerance. Oh and new laws with income-relative fines, temporary to permanent loss of driving license, and even jail for the worst driving offenses probably cooling the jets of even the wealthier road maniacs.
I think deaths jumped a bit post COVID but I don’t think they are skyrocketing. Do you have a source?
I looked it up. They aren’t skyrocketing.
The numbers dropped due to lockdown, then bounced up and are stable.
I hate this cult of negativity - just make up how everything is getting worse in order to hand more power to the government.
The casual and bovine l way it all happen is disgusting.
Exactly right. Anytime the police or other government authorities want to put more surveillance into our lives, the only answer should be HELL NO.
Yup, and some of these are quite serious. But a cop at the side of the road could stop these people instantly. These people won’t find out that they have broke the law for two weeks. Or they could just kill themselves/someone else/both half a mile up the road.
It’s about detering behaviours, if people know these cameras are out there, they will be less likely to act like that to begin with as the risk of consequences is now higher.
No they wouldn’t. You are telling me you could stop someone on the motorway instantly. You think a stationary cop at ground level would be able to spot a phone held below the window and have the reaction times to intiate a persute?
I never suggested any of this…alls I said was a cop at the side of the road could stop a car. I didnt say we couldnt have a copper parked up on a bridge as lookout or use these cameras.
I think the fact that car deaths are skyrocketing in the US and the UK is even more absurd since modern cars are supposedly “safer” with all of their safety tech.
SUV vs. Bicycle: cyclist dead.
There were 180 seat belt offenses and 117 mobile phone
and 300.000 drivers privacy got violated by a single offender. Someone should gve the AI a fine. Oh wait “privacy” is not a word in the English language anymore, it is just gibberish with no meaning.
You don’t have an expectation of privacy while driving on a public road and you never did.
I have an expectation of existing and having privacy because not everywhere is a camera. If you don’t have that expectation anymore, then that’s sad.
There is a huge difference between letting an AI check EVERY car ALL THE TIME, or police doing random checks on random roads. One is a privacy violation for some to find some people texting and driving and some people wearing no seatbelt, which then leads to more awareness of everyone about these issues. The other is treating all your citizens as potential “criminals” driving without seatbelt and texting and driving and therefore making it normal to violate everyones privacy.
A government that starts to treat all citizens like potential criminals all the time and put them on camera on every street and in their car and on public transport, in school and at work… is not a government that is on your side and wants to protect you, that’s a prison guard.
“Expectation of privacy” is a legal term with an agreed-upon definition that isn’t subject to your intuition or what you consider to be “sad”.
I know it is a legal term. It was meant to help protect peoples privacy, but got perverted to now mean that privacy only exists at home. That is sad and not understanding that it is sad, is even more sad.
