An AI technology firm will install 64 new cameras throughout the city to improve public safety as Houston Police Department officials say they are facing staffing shortages.
In a $177,483 contract approved Wednesday by City Council, Airship AI agreed to install the additional cameras and provide expanded server space to support them. The deal comes on the heels of statewide efforts to adopt the new technology across its many departments and agencies.
Advocates claim machine-learning tools will expand law enforcement capabilities and revolutionize public safety.
“The backdrop to all this, whether in policing or corrections, is the ongoing staffing crisis in the public safety sector,” said Marc Levin, chief policy counsel at the Council on Criminal Justice. “With the right guardrails, this type of technology can improve the efficiency and efficacy of police work.”
Levin pointed to the recent controversy surrounding HPD’s crime lab backlog. He said that, when used properly and within the guidelines of the Constitution, AI-driven technologies can free up resources dedicated to menial work.
“Right now we’re only clearing about half of reported homicides,” Levin said. “Property crime is at about 10%. There’s clearly a use case for technologies that can help us get those numbers up. It just comes down to a question of whether or not we’re willing to accept some of the tradeoffs that come with using AI.”
Others, however, have taken a less rosy view of the use of AI surveillance tools in public safety.
Savannah Kumar, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer specializing in surveillance and police bias, said such contracts represent a growing movement among government bodies rapidly adopting the technology.
“We’re seeing AI crop up pretty much across the entire state,” Kumar said. “It’s definitely a source of alarm and concern, particularly when it comes to the use of predictive technology and other tools in law enforcement.”
According to Kumar, predictive technologies, or programs that can flag an individual or group as high-risk for criminal activity, directly violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on undue search and seizure. In effect, Kumar said, AI technologies could one day be used to police individuals before any crime has been committed.
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Levin, despite his support for the technology, largely shared Kumar’s concerns with lack of transparency. He pointed to recent legislation from the European Union, which mandated AI providers share code with regulators. In the U.S., this information is generally classified as intellectual property and is not accessible to government officials.
He said there have been examples of cases in which evidence gathered through the use of AI was ruled inadmissible because no one could openly testify to how the software worked, or how it arrived at the conclusion it did.
See here for more on state policies about AI usage by government agencies. At this point, between the longstanding overpromised capabilities of security cameras and the ShotSpotter debacle, my first question is are we even sure any of this stuff works? The track record is spotty, to say the least. There are use cases, and if there’s a provable benefit in terms of generating leads and successfully closing cases, then that’s all good. Just, please, define some real metrics and stick to them, so that we’re willing to throw this out after only blowing a couple hundred grand if it’s all vaporware.
I’m confused – the Kubosh clan effectively shit-canned red light cameras in HTX, cameras used to give out tickets and change drivers behavior so the walking populace or law-abiding drivers don’t get popped at an intersection… but it’s going to be okay to install $178K worth of AI cameras and software that have, presumably, facial recognition algorithms to identify perps strolling the City’s streets and alert the authorities to same ?
If Houstonians don’t demand to see how these costs are justified, then you’ll see more of this – pandering to special interests in exchange for an election win. At the end of this administration the question is whether the City of Houston can dig itself out of the financial hole made much bigger by this administration. Even then, will people demand accountability?
Booooooo!
Are you talking about Sylvester Turner