this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
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The injured teenage survivor of a January 2025 shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee high school recently sued the manufacturer of an “AI gun detection” system that failed to detect the handgun that left two dead, including the shooter.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed in Davidson County court last month, the security company Omnilert either knew or should have known that there were “significant operational limitations in its gun detection system that could result in detection failures during actual emergencies, including limitations based on camera placement, proximity of the weapon to camera sensors, camera angle, lighting, and weapon visibility.”

Omnilert cofounder Ara Bagdasarian declined Ars’ invitation to answer questions about the lawsuit. System Integrations, the other defendant in the case, which resold the Omnilert system, also did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.

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[–] db2@lemmy.world 161 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Oops, both companies are suddenly restructured under new ownership (a baby new llc) so now there's nobody to sue.

Watch and see.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 47 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can’t wait for this be LLM run companies with 100% ownership by humans, so there’s no liability but the board controls everything.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 46 points 1 week ago

The next vendor contract will say "shot detector is for entertainment purposes only".

[–] iocase@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If it works for orphaned wells and patent trolls it'll work for this

[–] shrek_is_love@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

The director of Citizen Kane never did that!

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[–] ChiefGyk3D@infosec.pub 77 points 1 week ago (18 children)

I am so tired of AI being shoved into everything and then people surprised when it doesn’t work. There’s no AI I think that could have detected a small firearm easily concealed. Hell as it is with legal concealed carry you can’t tell who is legally carrying as it is even with some of the most observant eyes watching.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

People (and by this I mean the company) keep think that AI can give actual answers. It can't. It's a non-detrrminustic system, but they want it to behave deterministically. I'm sure the engineers gave the probability stats up to the business and marketing, who then immediately lowered their pants and shit on them, and then rolled it out as the perfect amazing product

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

The people who profit from this company don’t think that. They think that dumb school administrators think that, and will spend money on it.

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[–] howdy@lemmy.ml 67 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Using AI to stop school shootings it the type of idiot idea Sasha Baron Cohen would get a tech bro to unironically support. So much news these days feels like black comedy or satire

Not quite right. These types of ideas have existed for quite some time and have been used many many times in warfare by US military+allies. This was one of the core things that necessiated a company like palantir.

The only caveat is that, historically when these systems failed, it usually killed brown people which nobody really care about. Take the example of school bombing in iran or gaza genocide.

The problem is that the tolerance for error in warfare is always very high, anything can be written as "collatoral". But even a small error (like one kid dying) is too much inside a state.

That's why palantir in non military settings is disasterous.

TLDR: AI did better than expected, the problem was that, a white kid in USA died rather than a brown one in a third world country.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 58 points 1 week ago (5 children)

So once again the United States has attempted a complicated technical solution to a legal problem.

Why don't you just implement safe gun laws. You don't even have to ban people from owning guns, although that would be a good idea. You just need to have basic background checks on gun purchases.

[–] TotalCourage007@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

But then we can't have draconian ass surveillance funded by Epstein Predators, oh the horror!

[–] Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

We do have basic background checks on most purchases.

[–] greasewizard@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Most, but not all

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Fun thing about background checks they are only done once for the purchase.

Then after the fact doesn't matter if they lose their fucking shit and go mental. We checked their background! They where good at the time!

Background checks are fundamentally flawed from literally every possiable angle when your talking about a purchase of something that doesn't have a time limit.

Unless your doing annual background and mental checks it's literally just security theater. Better then literally nothing. But that's a low fucking bar.

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[–] kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Background checks are good, but they aren't a solution to school shootings. Those are almost all parents giving kids guns or having shitty storage practices.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Perhaps a tendency not to give your kids guns would be part of the background check, other countries managing.

[–] kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh 100% American gun culture is absolutely insane

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[–] greasewizard@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So charge the parents then

[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

They have been.

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[–] scytale@piefed.zip 47 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Wasn't there also a separate incident of a kid holding a harmless item (food?) that an AI system tagged as a gun?

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (7 children)

A tactical banana can absolutely change the outcome of many scenarios.

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wow my apologies for spreading such uneducated misinformation. The evidence presented in your documentary is irrefutable.

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[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 39 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Didn't that guy did an AMA on Reddit years ago? Kinda remember something like this being dunked on as another surveillance company trying to cash out on school shootings

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[–] PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml 34 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Why is this any better than a metal detector?

Asking the real questions here. My guess would be: they didn't have metal detectors, the metal detectors they had reached end-of-life, or preexisting metal detectors failed to integrate into a modern, unified surveillance system. And so the use of AI analytics tools, atop (preexisting) camera systems seemed more hassle-free (a subscription-based software integration) and cost-effective in the short term; that is if the unproven compromise bares any trust...

[–] EvergreenGuru@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Metal detectors in schools are dystopian and nobody who works in a school wants them.

[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Metal detectors in schools are dystopian

Sounds like they fit right in in the country where children are regularly and routinely murdered while at school and society at large is ok with it.

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[–] Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

AI is so much better and not dystopian 🙏

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[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 4 points 1 week ago

They're also a pain in the ass, because guns are hardly the only metal thing that gets brought into and out of schools.

So you need paid security guards at every entrance at all times, to go through the metal detector results and determine what is and isn't a false alarm.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 9 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Metal detectors are a logistical nightmare in a school

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[–] frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 23 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Soon: ai not meant to detect guns or prevent shootings, read fine print Court: OK cool, case dismissed

[–] nodiratime@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Next up: "AI has no duty to protect and serve"

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Even the greatest most infallible gun detection system imaginable can be defeated by having the gun inside a plastic bag.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They are making backpacks required as clear plastic these days.

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[–] kambusha@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago

Not hot dog

[–] umbraroze@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 week ago

Soooooo... which is going to ultimately turn out to be more effective way of detecting guns: AI systems, or dowsing? Both are gonna suck, be wholly inadequate for the purpose, and be giant wastes of public money - but obviously, but I've gonna admit, AI at least as mild possibility of being better than random chance. In optimal conditions. Maybe.

(You may be thinking "pfffft, surely people wouldn't be stupid enough use dowsing rods to detect weapons, that's just so clearly stupid", but they did, and this "solution" was sold to them by slick conmen. ...Sounds familiarrrr????)

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

AI can't even detect a fully formed gun, and California thinks the AI will have no problems detecting gun parts from just gcode??

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