It seems kinda reasonable to me? If someone proposed that we should turn off compiler warnings because only 13% of them are confirmed to be bugs, I'd give basically the same kind of response the NYPD gave here. The proposed metrics don't meaningfully evaluate what the system is trying to do, and we don't really have the time to drop other priorities and produce a comprehensive report about it, so let's keep using the tools that the people doing the work feel are useful unless we have a more compelling reason not to.
Does this analogy consider the costs involved with sending out the police? When the compiler is wrong, do armed agents of the state with broad discretion to employ violence in the commission of their duties get dispatched? What is the potential opportunity cost of inefficiently using the compiler vs the police choosing to respond to a shotspotter alert over a potently more accurate signal?
To be really clear, I think the risk profile of a false positive in terms of a compiler vs police dispatch is the difference between the potential waste of pennies compared to the potential waste of human lives.
I'm not sure what you're referring to, since the audit described in the source article doesn't seem to mention any such costs.
Perhaps you're coming from a perspective where policing is presumptively bad, and we ought to avoid having police around unless we're confident there's a specific benefit in doing so? I know that many people think that way, and I'm not sure how to engage with it other than to say I don't agree. I don't think the police are perfect by any means, but I live in an area covered by ShotSpotter, and I feel safer knowing they're detecting and investigating anything that sounds like a gunshot in my neighborhood.
Perhaps you're coming from a perspective where policing is presumptively bad
In much of the US, this is a fair assumption. The police have no legal obligation to assist. They carry guns and are authorized to use them. They receive less training than many of their European counterparts. And the entire justice system is constructed to allow minimal accountability in the face of malfeasance. It's a recipe for not only wasted dollars, but also excess violence and wasted lives.
Again, I'm not sure what to say. I agree with many of your criticisms, but it's hard for me to see why they imply that a tool to help police detect and investigate every gunshot noise in my neighborhood is bad. I'd much rather have an undertrained cop investigate than nobody at all, and training cops to a European standard would require large investments in police funding that I'm not sure are politically feasible today.
The problem is the tool is ineffective (to the point several cities have stopped using it). And anything that causes an erroneous/unnecessary police response should be viewed with extreme suspicion, given the massive flaws in our police model.
Yeah I'm not sure this report says much. They recommend the NYPD look into it more, but it could realistically be a good investment of resources. Some rough math:
(32*7262)/60/8/365 = 1.3 officers a year are wasted. There are like 30k officers in NYC. This seems like it could be a worthwhile investment even with only 13% true positives.
