Revealed: a California city is training AI to spot homeless encampments

Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 414 points –
Revealed: a California city is training AI to spot homeless encampments
theguardian.com

Last July, San Jose issued an open invitation to technology companies to mount cameras on a municipal vehicle that began periodically driving through the city’s district 10 in December, collecting footage of the streets and public spaces. The images are fed into computer vision software and used to train the companies’ algorithms to detect the unwanted objects, according to interviews and documents the Guardian obtained through public records requests.

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that is a disgusting take

Reality isn't here to amuse you. People with nice shoes and cell phones aren't 'homeless'. They prey on the naive.

You are completely divorced from the reality on the ground.

A good chunk of the unhoused (at least where I live, US CA) have jobs, it's just not enough for rent or they can't find a place because of poor credit, which means the places available are even more expensive. Rent has increased faster than median income, and way faster than low income.

Most unhoused are there temporarily. Anything nice they have may be from before they got into their present situation. And what are they supposed to do? Pawn off their cell phone for pennies on the dollar?

The explosion in number of unhoused people is not just a bunch of people happening to have some sort of moral failure all at once. The simpler explanation is that our economy and society is failing. And what do we expect to see as resources are hoarded by the powerful at exponentially increasing rates? Where do those resources come from?

Also self report on your attitude toward Roma people.

Gaslight all you want. Homeless people are not 'down-and-out'. There's plenty of help for those people who want it. The rest are scammer scumbags.

your attitude toward Roma people.

Again you reject reality - https://www.policemag.com/special-units/article/15349960/gypsies-kings-of-con

Do you know how much work it is to live unhoused? How uncomfortable and dehumanizing? If you are completely without shelter, how it is after it rains, or the air is choked with smoke during fire season?

It seems like you have just one explanation for everything here. When there's a problem, it's because of some moral failing that has to be punished. The publication you reference is telling.

Your attitude toward both Roma and unhoused is an outside look in, entirely through the lens of criminality. There is no understanding there. You are missing the big picture, the why behind all of the things people do.

If you really want to scam people, you start an LLC and live comfortably off of other people's work, like, you know, rich people do.