metropolis is recording drivers that AI says are dangerous

In a high-tech transfer that we are able to all get behind and isn’t dystopian in any respectthe Metropolis of Barcelona is feeding digital camera information from its metropolis buses into a complicated AI, however they swear they’re not utilizing the footage to to challenge tickets to dangerous drivers. But.

UPDATE 06DEC2025: the ticket bot cometh to Chicago.

Final month, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) contracted with Hayden AI to equip six of its transit buses with AI-powered license plate readers meant to focus on illegally parked autos in an space sure by North Avenue, Roosevelt Street, Lake Michigan and Ashland Avenue.

As with comparable pilots in Barcelona and NYC, the Hayden AI know-how captures info from autos illegally blocking bus and bike lanes, then submits its “findings” to a human reviewer for affirmation. If the reviewer agrees with the AI, they’ll challenge a nice of $90 for parking in a bus lane, $250 for bike lane obstruction, $50 for parking in expired meters exterior of the central enterprise district, and $140 for private autos parked in industrial loading zones.

Commercial – scroll for extra content material

Regardless of these hefty fines, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is fast to level out that the aim of this system isn’t to generate income.

“Each Chicagoan deserves a transportation system that’s secure, dependable, and environment friendly,” mentioned Mayor Johnson, in an announcement. “By preserving bus and bike lanes away from illegally parked autos, the Good Streets pilot helps us defend our most weak highway customers whereas bettering the day by day commute for riders throughout town.”

The official launch makes no point out of the truth that Hayden AI’s system generated practically $21 million in income for town in only a few months, although hundreds of these ticketed weren’t doing something flawed.

We wrote about a few of these points again in Jun. You possibly can learn that authentic article, beneath, and tell us what you consider Chicago’s “non-revenue” claims within the feedback.

Barcelona and its Ring Roads Low Emission Zone have earned a number of followers by limiting ICE site visitors within the metropolis’s core. Town’s newest concept to advertise mass transit is the deployment of a man-made intelligence system developed by Hayden AI for automated enforcement of reserved lanes and stops to enhance bus circulation – however whereas it appears to be working as meant, it’s elevating solely totally different questions.

“Bus lanes are designed to assist ship dependable, quick, and handy public transport service. However non-public autos illegally utilizing bus lanes make this not possible,” explains Laia Bonet, First Deputy Mayor, Space for City Planning, Ecological Transition, City Providers and Housing on the Ajuntament de Barcelona. “We’re excited to accomplice with Hayden AI to be taught the place these issues happen and the way they’re impacting our public transport service.”

At the moment working as a pilot program on town’s H12 and D20 bus strains, the system makes use of cameras put in on town’s electrical buses to detect autos that commit static violations within the bus lanes and stops (learn: stopping or parking the place you shouldn’t). The Hayden AI system then analyses that information and gives statistical info on what it captures whereas the bus is driving alongside on its day by day route.

Hayden AI says that, whereas it pictures and information video sequences and collects contextual info of the violation, its cameras do not report license plates or individuals and no penalties are being issued to drivers or homeowners of the autos.

To this point so good, proper? But it surely’s what occurs as soon as the six mont pilot is over that looks as if it must be setting off alarm bells.

Huge Brother Bus is watching

The footage is manually reviewed by a Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) officer, who reportedly reviewed some 2,500 violations recognized by AI in Could alone. However, whereas the system isn’t getting used to challenge violations through the pilot program, it simply might.

And, actually, it already has … and the AI f@#ked up royally.

AI writes hundreds of dangerous tickets

When AI was given the power to challenge citations in New York Metropolis earlier this yr, it wrote greater than 290,000 tickets (that’s proper: two-hundred and ninety thousand) in simply three months, producing practically $21 million in income for town. The was only one downside: hundreds of these drivers weren’t doing something flawed.

What’s extra, the fines generated by the AI powered cameras have been purported to be authorised solely after being verified by a human, however both that didn’t occur, or it did occur and the human operator in query wasn’t paying consideration, or (perhaps the worst risk) the violations have been errors or hallucinationsand the human checker couldn’t inform the distinction.

In OpenAI’s checks of its latest o3 and o4-mini reasoning fashions, the corporate discovered the o3 mannequin hallucinated 33% of the time throughout its PersonQA checks, through which the bot is requested questions on public figures. When requested brief fact-based questions within the firm’s SimpleQA checks, OpenAI mentioned o3 hallucinated 51% of the time. The o4-mini mannequin fared even worse: It hallucinated 41% of the time through the PersonQA check and 79% of the time within the SimpleQA check, although OpenAI mentioned its worse efficiency was anticipated as it’s a smaller mannequin designed to be sooner. OpenAI’s newest replace to ChatGPT, GPT-4.5, hallucinates lower than its o3 and o4-mini fashions. The corporate mentioned when GPT-4.5 was launched in February the mannequin has a hallucination charge of 37.1% for its SimpleQA check.

FORBES

I don’t find out about you guys, but when we had a neighborhood site visitors cop that obtained it flawed 33% of the time (at finest), I’d be shocked in the event that they stored their job for very lengthy. However AI? AI has a multibillion greenback hype prepare and armies of undereducated believers speaking about singularities and constructing themselves blonde robots with boobs. And as soon as the AI begins issuing tickets to the AI that’s driving your robotaxiit could possibly simply name its buddy AI the financial institution to ship over your cash. No human vital, at any level, and the financial system retains on buzzing.

However, like – I’m certain that’s nice. Embrace the long run and all that … proper?

SOURCES: Hayden AIby way of Chicago Solar InstancesForbes, Motorpasión.

In the event you’re contemplating going photo voltaic, it’s all the time a good suggestion to get quotes from just a few installers. To be sure you discover a trusted, dependable photo voltaic installer close to you that gives aggressive pricing, take a look at EnergySagea free service that makes it straightforward so that you can go photo voltaic. It has a whole bunch of pre-vetted photo voltaic installers competing for your enterprise, guaranteeing you get high-quality options and save 20-30% in comparison with going it alone. Plus, it’s free to make use of, and also you received’t get gross sales calls till you choose an installer and share your telephone quantity with them.

Your personalised photo voltaic quotes are straightforward to check on-line and also you’ll get entry to unbiased Power Advisors that will help you each step of the way in which. Get began right here.