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Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm over the past few years as companies in virtually every industry have attempted to harness its power. However, the technology can leave a lot to be desired—as evidenced by an incident that sparked a panicked response at a high school in Baltimore after A.I. managed to confuse a Doritos bag with a gun.
It’s hard to imagine it’s only been around five years since the tech world was doing everything in its power to hype up NFTs and the metaverse before they were quickly abandoned in favor of the hottest new trend in the virtual streets: artificial intelligence.
We still have a long way to go before A.I. is responsible for ushering in the kind of future that’s been depicted in science-fiction stories and movies where it plays an instrumental role, but platforms like ChatGPT and others that are capable of generating increasingly convincing photos and videos have provided a glimpse at what it could look like.
There are plenty of A.I. evangelists who have devoted a good chunk of their time to preaching the gospel of its potential, but there’s also no shortage of skeptics and critics who would tell you it’s overhyped while pointing out the potential dangers and well-documented shortcomings of a form of technology that is still firmly in its infancy.
Now, we’ve been treated to yet another example of those downsides courtesy of what unfolded in Baltimore earlier this week.
A high schooler in Baltimore was held at gunpoint because an A.I.-powered security system thought a Doritos bag was a firearm
In 2024, Baltimore County Public Schools began to harness the Omnilert Gun Detection System, which uses artificial intelligence to examine surveillance video in order to” identify a weapon within seconds and send an alert to the school safety team and law enforcement.”
That system was installed at Kenwood High School in the suburb of Essex, and according to WBAL, it was triggered around 7 P.M. on Monday before police officers and members of the school’s security team were dispatched to the area where it was detected.
Taki Allen, a sophomore who plays defensive end for the school’s football team, told the outlet he had just wrapped up practice and was helping himself to some Doritos shortly before he was unexpectedly swarmed by “eight cop cars.” He was handcuffed after complying with the officers who pulled their guns and ordered him to get down on the ground before conducting a search where no firearm was found.
They subsequently informed Allen that the A.I. system had falsely identified the bag of Doritos as a gun, which definitely seems like a thing that should not happen.
The high school issued a lengthy statement addressing the “upsetting” incident while saying Allen and other students who witnessed the scene will have access to counseling. It did not mention any plans to reassess the technology responsible for sparking it, and Omnilert passed the buck when contacted by saying it “doesn’t comment on internal school procedures.”