
Cameras That Can Spot Shoplifters Even Before They Steal? - howard941
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-04/the-ai-cameras-that-can-spot-shoplifters-even-before-they-steal
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kartikkumar
Correlation does not imply causation.

How do these AI systems account for causation?

It's the fundamental issue I have with the penetration of these sorta "AI"
systems in daily life: from what I understand about the basic maths, they're
ultimately all seeking correlation and real-world data used to improve models
seems to achieve verification, not validation.

I'm guessing I'm not the only person who reads this article and experiences a
visceral reaction.

This is what I would call "ugly" tech.

~~~
doublekill
These systems are interested in probabilities, not in finding the causes of
shoplifting. If not correlation, then what else?

~~~
kartikkumar
How is a validated chain of causation not important for these systems to
arrive at ethical predictions?

The causation gap for these models presents a really terrible scenario.

Without causation, these models are capable of correlating things like race,
gender, etc. with outcomes like shoplifting.

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doublekill
Because it is not a social science paper or a government policy (smoking
causes cancer, so we should forbid advertising smoking to teenagers). You do
not combat shoplifting by knowing the causes of shoplifting (being unethical
causes shoplifting, now what?).

Nobody infringes on your rights, if a system pings you as suspicious and so a
security guard is alerted and watches you more closely. There are no false
positive consequences here: either they find that can of Red Bull on your
person without a paid receipt, or they don't. You won't get banned from the
store, because the system inadvertently deemed you suspicious.

A whitebox statistical model still can provide the factors that contributed to
its prediction, without resorting to causal inference.

I do not think a certain race, gender, age, income causes shoplifting, but
they sure are correlated, and effective at finding shoplifters or tax
fraudsters. I deem the act of shoplifting more unethical than the act of
watching you on a camera feed. This already happens anyway, these systems just
manage attention better.

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lwansbrough
”These cameras act like a racist old shop keeper so you don’t have to, but
it’s cool because it’s ‘artificial intelligence’ and definitely not
profiling.”

~~~
ta8347
The article makes no mention of racism. The article only mentions "fidgeting,
restlessness and other potentially suspicious body language".

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nonsince
There are two options:

1) The "signs of shoplifting" are human-designed, and so are heavily biased 2)
The "signs of shoplifting" are entirely machine learning-based, meaning that
they are overwhelmingly biased towards the people who actually get caught and
the people who are of communities more likely to shoplift, either because of
economic necessity or because of being more likely to live in areas with
higher crime rates for whatever reason.

Both lead to racist results without any explicit racism being required.

Also in the absolute best-case scenario that this system works, all you're
achieving is locking up more people stealing out of desperation for the
benefit of corporations. Even that terrible situation, though, is a pipe dream
compared to the reality of systems like these.

~~~
mc32
I thought most of the shoplifting damage isn’t the teenager (or senior)
pocketing a snickers bar but the roving bands of professional shoplifters.
These people can be caught and deterred.

~~~
ceejayoz
The professionals will likely take the time and effort to discover and exploit
the holes in the AI.

~~~
mc32
I think at some point the effort will be too costly for them and they’ll fold
and it would make more sense to divert that effort into legit businesses.

~~~
manicdee
Other way around. By installing the shoplifter-detecting cameras, the
shopkeepers will lower their guard because they have just spent a lot of money
and are happy to abdicate the surveillance responsibility to the computer.

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marricks
Trying to detect a crime like shoplifting beforehand seems to open the door
for all sorts of biases, racial and otherwise...

~~~
vorhp
So if say, old white females who wear expensive clothes are more likely to
shoplift, should we ignore that?

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learc83
Yes, we should. As a society we've agreed that whatever benefits there may be
from racial profiling aren't worth the harm.

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diehunde
...Like a scene out of the movie “Minority Report,”algorithms analyze
security-camera footage and alert staff about potential thieves via a
smartphone app. The goal is prevention; if the target is approached and asked
if they need help, there’s a good chance the theft never happens.

At least the won't try to arrest you before committing a crime like in the
movie

~~~
ceejayoz
Nasty consequences could still ensue.

Imagine being banned from your main grocery store option because of a false
positive from this system.

~~~
Frost1x
As a society, we're rapidly encroaching into a deeper feudalistic structure
here in the US. This is apparent in trends shown in socioeconomic structure
and mobility. It's also apparent in the unrest you see in recent and current
politics.

At the same time, we're reaching a point with data science and sensing
technologies that we've not looked at from a moral and ethical perspective at
large as a society. These technologies will certainly be used by the ruling
class (wealthy, powerful) for their best interests to further entrench this
societal structure. As with any technology, it can also be used to serve
humanity at large so the technology itself isn't bad, it's always a balancing
act of how it's utilized.

We, as a society, really need to begin considering moral and ethical
implications of the uses of these technologies by the ruling class and decide
what we want and don't want to allow. If it's left for them to decide, I can
assure you, it won't be good for vast majority of us plebes/proles (citizens).

Maintaining a democracy is a never-ending fight and we meager citizens
currently seem to be losing the battle as technology accelerates the ruling
class's grip at every turn. Heck, people on this very site are indirectly
contributing to these development efforts for what now seems like a great
payoff. It's easy to get wrapped up in the beauty and complexity of technology
without considering its implications, especially when you're getting paid
quite well (for now). You only need to look back a few decades at
retrospective assessments from some of the greatest minds in the century that
developed modern nuclear weapons as a guide.

We need to organize and step-up our game to take back control of our
government to serve us (the people), not a select few extremely wealthy and
powerful folks. We need to consider moral and ethical implications of use of
these technologies and enact laws with serious protections and penalties
before mass abuse of technology grows more rampant.

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kibwen
_> artificial intelligence software that hunts for potential shoplifters,
using footage from security cameras for fidgeting, restlessness and other
potentially suspicious body language._

Isn't this survivorship bias? You can correlate suspicious mannerisms with
shoplifting only because the shoplifters without suspicious mannerisms don't
get caught. Has there been research into what percentage of inventory
shrinkage is attributable to people who exhibit such suspicious behavior? This
also leaves unanswered the question of how many people exhibit these behaviors
without being shoplifters, e.g. people with social anxiety (exhibiting general
nervousness), ADHD (insatiable restlessness), Tourette's (uncontrollable
physical tics), or on the autism spectrum (which can compel one to
conspicuously touch everything in sight).

~~~
49531
Can't wait to have loss prevention tailing me in home depot because I am
having a panic attack.

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Theodores
I am not sure if many of the commenters here have experience of shoplifting,
whether doing it or working in retail and therefore having to prevent what the
industry calls 'shrinkage'.

Some say that the neural network will be racial profiling instead of working
on body language tells. However, having worked in retail and knowing the
attitudes of some of my colleagues, I think I would trust a computer over some
of my former workmates when it comes to having fair suspicions.

The training for the neural network is simple, the known thieving incidents
get traced back to the thief entering the door and doing what all thieves do
when they enter the store - scope out the counter, the cameras and mirrors. It
is all body language.

There can be off-duty thieves who don't steal always but will be showing some
of the same tells. These will be false positives. But then there are the long
tail thieving situations that can not be spotted by a mere human.

For example, a woman regularly stealing cat litter and pet food with every
weekly shop for a family. She simply placed the items on the lower part of the
shopping trolley, checked everything else out properly and conveniently forgot
to pay for the 'minor items' on the lower rung.

No human would have thought a normal member of society would risk reputation
for the small financial gain involved. This probably started as an accidental
theft one week with no 'nerves' involved. By the following week the 'OMG silly
me!' routine would have been prepared for. There would be no looking at the
security arrangements walking in, so very different 'tells'. Humans could not
spot this, but a neural network trained on every bit of shrinkage across a
vast store network might stand half a chance.

If you do work in retail you actually want to deliver excellent customer
service and to trust customers. So, from a point of view of wanting to do that
and give customers undivided attention, I welcome our new neural network
overlords.

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learc83
There is no way this doesn't end up disproportionately impacting at least some
protected class.

Even if it doesn't, the opacity of ML means that it's going to difficult to
defend against charges that it does.

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ericol
Next move: Mimicking shoplifter behaviour in order to get harassed and suit
the crap out of stores.

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parsnipsumthing
How do they create first sample from which to "learn" without importing
current bias?

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myself248
The software looks "for fidgeting, restlessness and other potentially
suspicious body language".

Great, so sociopaths will go unchallenged because the computer deems them
trustworthy, and socially-anxious people will endure YET MORE intrusive
encounters during what should be a simple trip to the store.

"Can I help you? No, I won't go away, I don't understand this computer thing
but it says I really need to stay near you while you're in the store."

That'll be lovely.

~~~
ceejayoz
It's gonna be fun to watch when this runs up against the ADA.

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diogenescynic
Ah we’re at the pre-crime stage of our police state. Surely this will turn out
well.

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tlrobinson
And so it begins...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minority_Report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minority_Report)

~~~
Leszek
Slippery slope arguments slip both ways: [https://www.smbc-
comics.com/comic/2010-01-02](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-01-02)

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gmmeyer
This is gonna be some racist bs

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CalChris
No, they can't.

