1/ Today, a broad coalition of 42 leading civil rights, racial justice, and community groups are urging @Axon_US's new "AI ethics board" to reject the development and use of harmful police technologies. Here's our public letter to the board: civilrights.org/civil-rights-g…
2/ When it comes to the "AI ethics" of police tech, the stakes are high: major vendors like @Axon_US are building powerful tech for the police, including in agencies with long, documented histories of racial discrimination & patterns of unreasonable violence against communities.
3/ Imagine an officer with a gun making split-second decisions based on a probabilistic, error-prone tool. This is a recipe for tragedy. It is categorically unethical for @Axon_US to deploy real-time #facerecognition on body-worn cameras.
4/ And this isn't just about new AI-based tools—we need close ethical review of *all* police technologies. The first question must always be: What impact would these tools have on those who live in our most heavily policed communities?
5/ Police tech vendors like @Axon_US coordinate and contract with police departments, and see police as their primary customers. But ultimately police are supposed to serve communities, and police tech must be accountable to those communities as well.
(Passing the tweetstorm baton over to @lauramoy at @GeorgetownCPT!)
