You're missing the parts where I said twice that I wasn't defending the practice.

I've found that adding that disclaimer is entirely useless. Like holding beef jerky in front of a dog and saying "I'm not offering this to you, just holding it here".

You really couldn't have picked a better example to illustrate why the OPs argument was so ignorant. Pretending that reality doesn't exist doesn't make it stop existing.

No one is disagreeing that 1 per store per day is a small number. We're disagreeing with the OPs statement that there's nothing wrong with one false positive accusation of shoplifting per store per day given the obvious consequences of such an accusation in the context of the US system of policing and global blame shifting to the machine, and that given such a context essentially any false positive rate is too high.

So it's useless to say that A is wrong, but not because of B as claimed -- A is wrong for other reasons?

That sure does limit discussion, and human reason generally. I mean, what do you suggest instead?

I'm just saying I've tried to proffer a position while disclaiming any support for it, and maybe some people listen, but there will always be someone who is too tempted to attack the position instead of treating it as a specimen.

What is "hell on earth" to you?

Cops have probable cause and search you. Find no evidence. "Oh boy sorry for the mix up sir". Hell on earth!

Ah yes, those american police who are so well known for their thoughtful and calm approach to suspected shoplifters in low income neighborhoods.

You have an alternative for handling law breakers aside from just letting them do it?

Your insistence on framing people falsely accused of shoplifting as law breakers is telling.

suspected law breakers then? Fucking semantics people. Also telling.

This entire thread has been about false positives. Innocent people being falsely accused of shoplifting. The difference between committing a crime and not committing a crime is not simply semantics.

Police handle both. The "law breaking" aspect isn't proven until later. So the argument is moot anyway really.

And we return to hell on earth, where an innocent person is put through the grinder of the us justice system.

Spotted the person who has never been detained/arrested and then searched in public before.

Trust me man it’s especially degrading not to mention time consuming.

And in the US, just being arrested -- even if the arrest was a mistake and no charges are filed -- has serious adverse consequences for the arrested person.

"Oh boy sorry for the mix up sir"

i've been racially profiled before and never once has a cop apologized "for the mixup" after detaining me (rudely, usually cursing, fishing for a way to bust me).

"hell on earth" is living in a dystopian society where non-white citizens are detained and held for no reason and assumed to be guilty, because of a malfunctioning "AI" system.