Racial bias in AI: Officers questioned father in watch theft probe after he was wrongly identified by facial recognition technology
Three years ago in Detroit, Robert Williams arrived home from work to find the police waiting at his front door, ready to arrest him for a crime he hadn’t committed.
Facial recognition technology used by officers had mistaken Williams for a suspect who had stolen thousands of dollars worth of watches.
The system linked a blurry CCTV image of the suspect with Williams in what is considered to be the first known case of wrongful arrest owing to the use of the AI-based technology.
The experience was “infuriating”, Mr Williams said.
“Imagine knowing you didn’t do anything wrong… And they show up to your home and arrest you in your driveway before you can really even get out the car and hug and kiss your wife or see your kids.”
Mr Williams, 45, was released after 30 hours in custody, and has filed a lawsuit, which is ongoing, against Detroit’s police department asking for compensation and a ban on the use of facial recognition software to identify suspects.
Robert Williams with his family
There are six known instances of wrongful arrest in the US, and the victims in all cases were black people.
Artificial intelligence reflects racial bias in society, because it is trained on real-world data.
A US government study published in 2019 found that facial recognition technology was between 10 and 100 times more likely to misidentify black people than white people.
This is because the technology is trained on predominantly white datasets. This is because it doesn’t have as much information on what people of other races look like, so it’s more likely to make mistakes.
There are growing calls for that bias to be addressed if companies and policymakers want to use it for future decision-making.
One approach to solving the problem is to use synthetic data, which is generated by a computer to be more diverse than real-world datasets.
Chris Longstaff, vice president for product management at Mindtech, a Sheffield-based start-up, said that real-world datasets are inherently biased because of where the data is drawn from.
“Today, most of the AI solutions out there are using data scraped from the internet, whether that is from YouTube, Tik Tok, Facebook, one of the typical social media sites,” he said.
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As a solution, Mr Longstaff’s team have created “digital humans” based on computer graphics.
These can vary in ethnicity, skin tone, physical attributes and age. The lab then combines some of this data with real-world data to create a more representative dataset to train AI models.
One of Mindtech’s clients is a construction company that wants to improve the safety of its equipment.
The lab uses the diverse data it has generated to train the company’s autonomous vehicles to recognise different types of people on the construction site so it can stop moving if someone is in their way.
Some CCTV cameras are now fitted with facial recognition technology. File pic
Toju Duke, a responsible AI advisor and former programme manager at Google, said that using computer-generated, or “synthetic,” data to train AI models has its downsides.
“For someone like me, I haven’t travelled across the whole world, I haven’t met anyone from every single culture and ethnicity and country,” he said.
“So there’s no way I can develop something that would represent everyone in the world and that could lead to further offences.
“So we could actually have synthetic people or avatars that could have a mannerism that could be offensive to someone else from a different culture.”
The problem of racial bias is not unique to facial recognition technology, it has been recorded across different types of AI models.
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The vast majority of AI-generated images of “fast food workers” showed people with darker skin tones, even though US labour market figures show that the majority of fast food workers in the country are white, according to a Bloomberg experiment using Stability AI’s image generator earlier this year.
The company said it is working to diversify its training data.
A spokesperson for the Detroit police department said it has strict rules for using facial recognition technology and considers any match only as an “investigative lead” and not proof that a suspect has committed a crime.
“There are a number of checks and balances in place to ensure ethical use of facial recognition, including: use on live or recorded video is prohibited; supervisor oversight; and weekly and annual reporting to the Board of Police Commissioners on the use of the software,” they said.
Police in Tennessee have discovered 14 improvised explosive devices in a man’s home as they were arresting him, the local sheriff’s office said.
Officers were executing a warrant in the home of Kevin Wade O’Neal in Old Fort, about 45 miles (70km) east of Chattanooga, after he had threatened to kill public officials and law enforcement personnel in Polk County.
After arresting the 54-year-old, officers noticed “something smouldering” in the bedroom where he was found.
Kevin Wade O’Neal. Pic: Polk County Sheriff’s Office
On closer inspection, they discovered an improvised explosive device and evacuated the house until bomb squad officers arrived at the scene.
Fourteen devices were found inside the property – none of which detonated.
Improvised explosive devices were found in Kevin Wade O’Neal’s home. Pic: Polk County Sheriff’s Office
Kevin Wade O’Neal’s home in Old Fort, Tennessee. Pic: Polk County Sheriff’s Office
O’Neal was charged with 11 counts of attempted first-degree murder, corresponding to nine officers and two other people inside the property when the suspect tried to detonate the devices.
He also faces 14 counts of prohibited weapons and one count of possession of explosive components.
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O’Neal is being held at the Polk County jail and his bond is yet to be determined.
Donald Trump says he has ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in the “appropriate regions” in a row with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
It comes after Mr Medvedev, who is now deputy chair of Russia‘s Security Council, told the US president on Thursday to remember Moscow had Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities of last resort.
On Friday, Mr Trump wrote on social media: “Based on the highly provocative statements of the Former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.
“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
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Trump: ‘We’re going to protect our people’
Speaking outside the White House later in the day, Mr Trump was asked about why he had moved the submarines and replied: “We had to do that. We just have to be careful.
“A threat was made and we didn’t think it was appropriate, so I have to be very careful. So I do that on the basis of safety for our people. A threat was made by a former president of Russia and we’re going to protect our people.”
The spat between Mr Trump and Mr Medvedev came after the US president warned Russia on Tuesday it had “10 days from today” to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face tariffs, along with its oil buyers.
Moscow has shown no sign that it will agree to Mr Trump’s demands.
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On Thursday, Mr Medvedev reminded Mr Trump that Russia possessed a Soviet-era automated nuclear retaliatory system – or “dead hand”.
Mr Medvedev, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was referring to a secretive semi-automated Soviet command system designed to launch Russia’s missiles if its leadership was taken out in a decapitating strike.
He made the remarks after Mr Trump told him to “watch his words” after Mr Medvedev said the US president’s threat of hitting Russia and its oil buyers with punitive tariffs was “a game of ultimatums” and added that “each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war” between Russia and the US.
Dmitry Medvedev. Pic: Reuters
Mr Medvedev served as Russia’s president from 2008 and 2012, when Mr Putin was barred from seeking a third consecutive term, but then stepped aside to let him run again.
As deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, he has become known for his provocative and inflammatory statements since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
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