Whatever method the border force used to determine this, I cannot imagine how AI is going to be more accurate.
Since this is the UK, see also the entire post office scandal. It was often blamed on a faulty accounting software developed by Fujitsu, even though the software put no one in jail. Human prosecutors did. But of course the British state apparatus will not admit to that, so all we hear is this story about software errors that conveniently ignores any human involvement in the process.
Likewise politicians supervising those executives somehow conveniently didn't ask any questions, forgot what they'd been told and generally had no idea what was happening.
Some of the crimes so often committed by executives who walk free needs to delete Mens Rea so that when executives say they had no idea the prosecutor doesn't even skip a beat because it doesn't matter. For comparison in UK criminal law if you have sex with a ten year old, and you try to argue† you thought they were of age and also you had their consent, the prosecutors will move on because you haven't actually defended yourself at all, sex with the ten year old was rape by definition, the fact is the crime, what you believed about it was irrelevant, you're done.
† If you have defence counsel they'll strongly urge you not to try this because it can't work
That is a massive time sink for social workers, and the appeal of having an automated system is pretty obvious. Considering that it is already all largely guesswork, I'm not really sure that "more accurate" is even an acceptance criteria for them right now- they'd probably be very happy with "mostly the same accuracy".
Of course, the social workers are opposing being taken out of the loop, but I can't imagine that there isn't already plenty of work for them elsewhere in the UK.
in my observation: when humans are automated out of a process due to the human element being inconvenient, the perceived efficiency gains are often because wronged individuals have less recourse in the automated system.
I cannot imagine how AI is going to be more INaccurate.
As ever, this is the real risk of "AI"; not the technology itself so much as the technology-as-social-construct. A machine oracle we can abdicate decisions to with a facade of neutrality.
In this case, the facade is painting over the underlying motivation which is to reject asylum claims. You could imagine a world in which it is instead used to scan and fast-track claims through an automated and unaccountable process, but the form of the deployment has baked-in the outcome and interests of the powerful. Don't be surprised if there's another automated AI system that totally-pinky-promise-for-sure validates that rich tourists aren't terrorists so they can walk through security unmolested and another system that uses AI to flag "suspicious behavior" for the proles. The outcome is baked in, the AI just provides plausibility and legitimacy.
Seems like another measuring device, like a breathalyzer or radar gun, and should be held in court to the same (hopefully high) standards.
That feels like an unfair read. Asylum seekers claiming to be younger than they are is a known reality, and it makes total sense that a system would need to guard against that. Are you suggesting we just take every person who shows up at the border at their word?
That's not what I said. It's all about the framing. Rejecting is automated, accepting is slow and deliberate. This is reflective of a preference for rejection but presented as neutral and pragmatic. If you cared about false negatives as much as false positives you wouldn't fast-track or preference either branch. The observation that this is the case is value-neutral.
As for my personal opinion, I consider freedom of movement a human right and accepting asylum seekers a moral obligation. Both can be implemented poorly, but it's our duty to try to do them right and allocate these systems the resources they need to succeed and to hold incompetent or malicious leaders responsible for failing to operate them effectively.
Massive payouts for misstatements attributing adulthood to kids from illegal Indonesian fishing boats and jailing them in adult prisons.
https://www.dental-tribune.com/news/dental-hygienist-fired-f...
Nothing magically happens to teeth when someone turns 18.
Wisdom teeth develop during teen years and may erupt as early as 16, as late as 25, or not at all.
> may erupt as early as 16, as late as 25
Cool so assuming the average age to be 20.5 this means someone with wisdom teeth is more likely to be of age than not.
Put this fact together with other factors like wrist x-ray estimation and obviously looking like an adult and maybe we can have some common sense
> In another example, a Vietnamese national was initially given the benefit of the doubt at the first triage that took place in the waiting area. The CIO and social worker commented on his “soft face”, which they said was consistent with his claimed age of 17. However, his “developed shoulders” and “huge hands” cast doubt for them, as did a “tiny bit of stubble” that they noticed when they asked him to raise his chin. The CIO and social worker told inspectors afterwards that Vietnamese young people were typically difficult to assess because they “did not have the same ageing process”, and “did not show signs of ageing”. When asked where the evidence for this was, they said that it was knowledge gained through their own experience. The social worker said, “It is just genetics”, but was unable to support this with evidence.
If I had to choose between being judged by an AI model and being judged based on ad hoc stereotypes of what my race's shoulders and hands typically look like, I'd definitely pick the AI.
It's a problem when people use this kind of system to circumvent the question of "do we have to make this judgment at all". We shouldn't, for example, predict from someone's photo how likely they are to commit a crime, so we're rightly skeptical of people who try to argue about system X or system Y might better predict it.
But as the source article covers, the UK's asylum laws require it to make this age judgment, because child migrants are entitled to special programs separate from adult migrants on account of their vulnerable status.