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.
quite ironically in this context, san jose is named after st. joseph – he of the legal dad of jesus fame – who was once famously told there was no room at the inn and had to make do in a stable.
Every year California is becoming more like Night City. Cyperpunk is supposed to be a dystopia, not an aspiration.
When housing becomes a for profit business, this is the result. It’s happening in my city in Canada as well.
I have a homeless community sprouting up behind our cul de sac and it gets bigger each spring. It likely disappears in the winter, I’ve no desire to walk through the uncleared snow to find out. And a few blocks away people are camping out on sidewalks everywhere, it’s becoming an epidemic, in a city that was once very affordable.
Tulsa Oklahoma is full of homeless encampments and this is supposed to be one of the cheaper states to live in. Yet landlords want to price their places like the bigger cities. It is scary to see what cost to rent in this town compared to the pay being offer for jobs. Its wonder there isn’t more homeless.
We’re all shocked that New Technology X is used to target and oppress people
Is it done to give them home quicker? Is it?
*sigh*
The rates of suicide are going to skyrocket
“unwanted objects”
They start out identifying the various “races” probably. I’m a brown person and would like to keep reminding everyone that different races do not exist in the sense that it is not a scientific term with any meaning. A term with proper meaning is “species” and there is only one “homosapiens”… it’s not just Juantastic who lives under the bridge, it’s all of us. We are all a single family. Anyway, would you let your brother or sister or parents or relatives go live under a bridge and hungry? Nah right? What if they were thousands of miles away and didn’t have a place to sleep in? Still nah! You would do whatever to try to help! So why are there homeless people in every city and why do we not help Gaza and Ukraine people? Right? We need to do a better job!
the accuracy for lived-in cars is still far lower: between 10 and 15%
Sounds like the tech isn’t terribly useful
That surely won’t stop governments from throwing millions at it or private companies from taking the money.
I wonder if it could spot Steve
I’m so grateful he’s Canadian
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This sounds like a real opportunity for false positives as opposed to, I dunno, engaging with the community?
From the screen grabs, Since when is a legally street parked RV a homeless encampment? Looks like picking low hanging fruit for campaign talking points.
Maybe it’s to help them.
Don’t tell me, I like the illusion.
Holy Mackerel! Could this be any more of an extremely boring dumb and awful cyberpunk dystopia? Good God!
I’m going to choose to believe that the goal is to know how to more efficiently deliver aid to those that need it
