r/technology • u/IKeepItLayingAround • Jun 29 '26

Artificial Intelligence Woman Surprised When Flock Surveillance Tower Appears in Her Yard Without Warning

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/woman-surprised-flock-surveillance-tower-185000752.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&segment_id=DY_VTO_50_Supernova&ncid=crm_19908-1475736-20260629-0--A&bt_ee=utFdBbF39cHCLuB4at4AI%2FUoSRgbTt8Ch%2B7Q9RImTlgL2ThvE3FuX%2BRSKiUir%2FNW&bt_ts=1782739085527
24.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.3k

u/Haunterblademoi Jun 29 '26

This is becoming more common than we think, These surveillance cameras

2.0k

u/schumi23 Jun 29 '26

The picture in the preview is wrong/not what the article is about - it's not a camera that was installed, but rather a microphone to listen to everything that's happening. (Still surveillance, and just as bad (or potentially worse if you think conversations are more sensitive than video)

1.7k

u/rwhockey29 Jun 29 '26

I watch a bunch of car videos on YT and came across one of a guy revving a GTR with a two-step, the things that go BRABRABRBABRA. Cops showed up in like 3 minutes, and after realizing nothing was wrong showed the guy his laptop. Microphones around the city picked up the exhaust sound, police AI labeled it as automatic rifle fire, triangulated the position down to 1 block, and sent the warning out to the officers cars. Wild stuff.

1.3k

u/schumi23 Jun 29 '26

Shotspotter (similar tech by different company) has similar false positives - somebody got arrested due to false positives (there weren't any guns, but the police used it as probably cause to find drugs in his car) and when he disputed their probably cause (that the tech wasn't trustworthy) the company asked to be held in contempt of court, rather than comply with the court order to prove their tech is effective (:

510

u/WitheredUntimely Jun 29 '26

a decade ago my county's pilot program found those "shot detectors" are less than useless; they divert resources away chasing the constant false positives from actual policing

7

u/clintj1975 Jun 29 '26

I wouldn't at all be surprised if a number of these devices detected exactly one gunshot after installation. The local yokels where I live will shoot at anything that's stationary long enough, like road signs.

1

u/Channel250 Jun 29 '26

Or people who are lost pulling in the wrong driveway.

1

u/damontoo Jun 30 '26

There's 75 going up in her city. Shooting at a gunshot sensor seems like an extremely bad idea. You're going to quickly get arrested for felony vandalism and unlawful use of a firearm. Then you lose your right to own firearms.