By Conn Williamson
Writer
Imagine living the best years of one’s life only to have the future in jeopardy as a result of unreliable technology and security protocol implemented due to the unreasonable.
This was the case in the disturbing narrative of a 16-year-old student athlete who was arrested in the front of his high school in the aftermath of gross incompetency and politics colliding at warp speed leaving the pupil helpless and in distress.
According to WMAR-TV, the Baltimore Maryland teenager had just finished football practice and was enjoying a snack-sized bag of a popular chip brand when all hell broke loose. As the young consumed his snack not one, but an estimated eight law enforcement vehicles screeched to a halt around the youth and officers with guns raised surrounded him and demanded that he get on his knees. He was instantaneously handcuffed and detained, all because the bag of chips was mistaken for a firearm by supposedly the latest and greatest in software.
The dual culprits for the debacle, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) network that can allegedly detect unauthorized firearms on school campuses within the region, and an overzealous and ignorant school resources officer and employee of Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS). WMAR-TV reports that the “smart” software system framework sent out an alert identifying the bag of nacho chips as the presence of a potential gun, which was received by the aforementioned security professional. Within moments of the original alert the AI correct itself and issued a false alarm, but to no avail.
Fortunately the situation was resolved, and no one was hurt, after police verified the false alarm generated by the network mainframe, and the student was released.
Responding to the egregious and unacceptable performance of the gun tracking AI and the school resources officer ignoring the false alarm and calling police instead, BCPS Superintendent Dr. Myriam Rogers defended the technology, and blamed “human error” for the incident. “The program is based on human verification and in this case the program did what it was supposed to do which was to signal an alert and for humans to take a look to find out if there was cause for concern in that moment,” she incredulously remarked during a press conference.
Ironically, Rogers was hired by the school district in 2023, the same year that the AI “smart” system was installed, and she has been a staunch proponent of schools under her reign being “gun free” zones.
It was not reported if the student received an apology from law enforcement or if the family will pursue any legal action against the school district or Omnilert, the tech firm and developer of the gun-identifying AI and the manufacturer of the related hardware.
As the “nuclear age” dissolves into the “information age”, humans must remain vigilant to ensure that future issues involving life and death situations caused by errors are avoided at all costs and that a bag of chips is not a tool capable of lethal force.
