Two new laws with major implications for how AI is used in society are being considered in Canada. Both lack protections for the public from the harms of AI, including racial profiling by police.
In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other policing agencies, including the Toronto Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police, have already been called out by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada for using the Clearview AI technology to conduct mass surveillance.
AI facial recognition systems cannot tell most people of colour apart. According to one study, the error rate is the highest for Black women, at 35 per cent.
For the most part the hype around “AI” is just annoying, but here it’s actually dangerous. I don’t expect most police officers would know or care that this is not a precise and accurate technology, if it gives them a quick and easy way to find and arrest suspects.
I’m an AI enthusiast, but id be the first to say that whoever greenlights a system with such obvious bias issues for something so important should be sacked. Although, before AI, cops just use bullshit mindreading tactics that basically boil down to “harass anyone who doesn’t act within your cultural and neurotypical norms” while encouraging them to influence their own perceptions with any personal or local biases. I.E. Cops are borked and need reshaping.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !canada@lemmy.ca
For the most part the hype around “AI” is just annoying, but here it’s actually dangerous. I don’t expect most police officers would know or care that this is not a precise and accurate technology, if it gives them a quick and easy way to find and arrest suspects.
It does the same thing they do already, it just gives them plausible deniability.
Yep just passes the blame further down the line on and obscures the being acting and their racial biases.
I’m an AI enthusiast, but id be the first to say that whoever greenlights a system with such obvious bias issues for something so important should be sacked. Although, before AI, cops just use bullshit mindreading tactics that basically boil down to “harass anyone who doesn’t act within your cultural and neurotypical norms” while encouraging them to influence their own perceptions with any personal or local biases. I.E. Cops are borked and need reshaping.
It’ll get better.