👮 Cops vs. Bots 🤖
The one kind of spy tech police hate
🤜 Welcome to Dog Jail Tech Beat, where we pummel fresh, dripping insights out of the week’s biggest tech news.
In today’s edition: privacy on patrol, OpenAI’s “ominous” rebrand, and why 23andMe is the loneliest number.
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While most of us eventually outgrow our childish fantasies, some people end up becoming cops. Drones, license plate readers, automatic gunshot detectors: Police love using public money to buy neato spy gadgets—as long as its strictly them using their whiz-bang toys on us. When they’re the ones being watched, our state-subsidized James Bond cosplayers suddenly care a lot about privacy, as the frosty reception for an AI-powered police-monitoring tool shows.
The monitoring software, made by a company called Truleo, is designed to assess the “professionalism” of police when interacting with the public. The system automatically reviews audio captured by bodycam footage, flagging when officers use abusive or offensive language. That’s all it takes, apparently, to turn your average beat cop into Edward fucking Snowden. From NPR:
"AI looking over us — when does it stop?" says Mike Solan, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild.
When media reports revealed early last year that the Seattle Police Department was trying Truleo, it took the union by surprise.
"They went behind our backs and rolled this thing out," Solan says. "They were indeed spying on us. And when we caught them, they panicked."
Truleo has faced similar pushback from police unions in Virginia, New York, and California. In at least two cases, this resulted in departments cancelling their contracts with the company. Surveillance-averse officers are fortunate to have such powerful groups defending their privacy. Members of the public, sadly, often have much less say when those same officers want to use other high-tech tools to track their every move.
For its part, Truleo is now exploring business models that invite less controversy than watching the watchmen. In July, the company announced it was launching a new feature that uses AI to help officers write police reports. You know what that means, lawman: fewer hours spent doing your homework and more time to play with your toys.
Arrest Report
💀 DEATH ROW: OpenAI’s robotic butthole logo. According to Fortune, the ChatGPT maker is planning to retire its “hexagonal flower symbol” and replace it with one described as “a simple, large black ‘O.’” Employees have reportedly objected to the redesign as “ominous” and “lacking in creativity”—words that do a pretty good job of describing ChatGPT.
🚔 IN CUSTODY: FTX trial cooperating witness Caroline Ellison. On Tuesday, the sometimes girlfriend, sometimes co-conspirator of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the crypto exchange’s collapse. Prosecutors, requesting leniency, emphasized what a stupid rube their star witness against Bankman-Fried is. “Unlike Bankman-Fried, she is not cunning,” they told the judge.
🐑 AT LARGE: Robot stock-pickers. Israeli regulators have approved AI startup Bridgewise to release a chatbot “that can offer recommendations for which stocks to buy and sell in response to user queries,” Bloomberg reports. Finally, the same kind of AI model that told Google users to eat glue can help you invest your life savings.
One Big Number
Remaining board members at DNA-testing company 23andMe after all seven independent directors simultaneously resigned last week. Still on the board is 23andMe’s CEO and co-founder, Anne Wojcicki, who has been unable to stop the company’s valuation from declining 99.9% from its peak.
Since taking the company public in 2021, Wojcicki has led 23andMe through a variety of financial whoopsies and oh-nos, the biggest problem being that its flagship product—at-home genetic testing—is something that most customers use exactly once. Just this month, for instance, 23andMe agreed to pay out $30 million over a data breach where a hacker specifically targeted customers of Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.
The good news for 23andMe’s one-time customers is that, even if the company goes belly up, data they’ve given the gene-testing company could live on. According to 23andMe’s privacy statement: “If we are involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be accessed, sold or transferred as part of that transaction.”
Action Center
🔔 Alert 🔔
“James Cameron Joins Board of Stability AI in Coup for Tech Firm”
“New Cloudflare Tools Let Sites Detect and Block AI Bots for Free”
⚠️ Warning ⚠️
“An AI-powered copyright tool is taking down AI-generated Mario pictures”
“US to ban Chinese connected car software and hardware, citing security risks”
“Telegram will now hand over your phone number and IP if you’re a criminal suspect”
‼️ Jesus Christ ‼️
“Electronic Warfare Spooks Airlines, Pilots and Air-Safety Officials”
“Gavin Newsom sides with cops, vetoes California bill banning police use of killer drones”
Parting Shot
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