This is what happens when AI is tasked with surveillance.
Although AI involvement is not mentioned in the article, this quote might implicate that AI recognition could have been used:
“It’s got the incorrect date of birth, then it’s got a description of me, which says I have hat hair, which I found quite odd,” he said.
The problem with all that is that the whole process seems to be automated and that it hardly can be interrupted with human intervention.
Jones is also concerned the same thing might happen to somebody else who may not have the capacity to challenge the fine.
This indeed is concerning, as it already is challenging sometimes to deal with authorities, even when AI is not involved at all.
Look, I hate the intrusion into our lives of unaccountable computer systems as anyone. But this article has nothing to do with facial recognition or AI. It’s a bureaucratic fuck up.
Manchester City Council don’t even own or operate any facial recognition equipment at this point. Greater Manchester Police do, but they’ve only purchased it a month or so ago (after this story even unfolded) and they’ve only deployed it a couple of times so far and only at mass events. And Greater Manchester Police aren’t the issuing body of the fixed penalty notice.
Conflating genuine human and computer errors with AI just makes us look like crazy people shouting at clouds.