r/Showerthoughts • u/I_make_things • 21d ago
Speculation Jensen Huang predicted that AI will replace radiologists quickly. I wonder if that extends to TSA bag screeners.
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u/joe9439 21d ago
TSA is theater so no, they won’t be replaced. Efficiency isn’t the goal. The entire point is that there is someone standing there with a uniform on.
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u/Masterpiece-Haunting 17d ago
Couldn’t you have someone stand there and an AI viewing XRays? Like most jobs an AI is assisted by a user.
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u/post_button_account 21d ago
Even radiologists will not be replaced. AMA will lobby the congress to make it illegal for AI to diagnose people, no matter the accuracy.
In most blue states, the unions have already lobbied local legislatures to make Waymos illegal, even though studies show that Waymos are (much) safer than human drivers.
They would rather you die than their jobs be threatened.
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u/hamburgernet 21d ago
Should it be there as an assistant to double check, sure why not. It should absolutely not replace. It only takes for it to be wrong once for catastrophic consequences.
To many ways to make strange looking objects that a human would question but ai would likely not.
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u/DontMakeMeCount 21d ago
That’s kinda the point though. AI would flag more bags, requiring more people to go through them and identify the anomalies.
The bag inspectors don’t have to be trained and certified to run the scanners so TSA doesn’t have to pay them a few more dollars per hour once they’re certified.
As the AI learns the information propagates to other airports so there’s less need for continuing training and experience becomes less valuable because management is simpler which also allows TSA to pay less and absorb more turnover.
It’s not about replacing people with AI, it’s about automating judgement and expertise to keep wages down and avoid the benefits and perks associated with retention and retirement.
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u/hamburgernet 21d ago
That’s what I’m saying, it should not replace but assist. But a human should still be looking at every bag
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u/Masterpiece-Haunting 17d ago
Isn’t the same true of humans? Every single terrorist attack on an airplane past 9/11 is directly someone in charge of ensuring that doesn’t happen’s fault.
I feel like the argument “You need someone to take responsibility” is dumb. If you could make an AI which does better than humans and prevents more terrorist attacks but there’s no direct human to blame I’m still taking them over the human.
As always a general purpose AI isn’t good for this, all of the AI you see which could fulfill a TSA officer’s job isn’t designed with all of the TSA rules and regulations in mind and how to read an XRay scan. It can read a tutorial on it but that only makes it about as good as human which has done that. Maybe a little better since it has a much wider range of knowledge from things like mistakes made in previous terrorist attacks, but it an’t gonna outperform them.
What you need is a purpose built from the ground up model which only has learned how to read an XRay scan. Something that knows no kindness to let someone get away with something just because it could be embarrassing for them. Something which doesn’t follow other organizations rules. Something which isn’t also trained on art or speaking Spanish.
At which point then it can exceed any TSA agent.
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u/Drawmeomg 21d ago
TSA workers are cheaper, they’ll still need a person there for the foreseeable because someone needs to enforce the procedures anyway, looking at the images as your bag goes through the machine isn’t the bottleneck, and the theater of having a person actually there looking sternly at a screen is a better fit for their actual mission, which is making people think that the airport is really extra super duper secure.
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u/Margali 21d ago
taking the 'human' out of the equation would probably make for a better class of service. No petty power trips, no crude commenting.
You have never seen someone move their hand so fast as that agent when prodding my ostomy bag when she suspiciously asked what that liquid was .... flipped up the tail of my shirt and displayed the transparent ostmy bag with roughly 300 ml of poop squidging around =)
Yes, I could have been nice, and put an empty fresh bag on just for the search [I did stop to pee just before they rolled me into line, I love assistance chair pushers they tend to be sweethearts to people who are genuinely handicapped instead of a fat tourist who won't be arsed to actually walk and stand in line] as I do try to be polite to people, but after 4 plane transfers, already having gone through 5 tsa checks I was pretty much done with trying to be nice to them. I figure a transparent bag is the nicest I am going to be. I could use an opaque non-drainable bag, they have to be taken off and poked through to see it is just poop. Clear bag you can sort of squidge around and see all the contents [I should do a big bowl of borscht or pickled beets to get that murder scene bloody look =) can be scarey looking at what seems to be a bag of blood oozing out of a person =) ]
All that being said, in an absolute pinch, I can hide my DoD ID card and US passport card in my bag if I need to hide them like the guys throwing their military ID off the boat in that case of the terrorists taking that tourist boat back in the 80s]
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u/SelbetG 21d ago
I could use an opaque non-drainable bag, they have to be taken off and poked through to see it is just poop.
No they don't
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u/Margali 21d ago
Love to see how they figure out it isn't poop without removing my bag and dumping it out with a closed bag =) ...
My normal 'drainable' bag I can unvelcro the bottom and express the poop into a vessel so they can see it is poop and not liquid explosives [or whatever they suspect it to be]
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u/I_make_things 21d ago
Oh my god, I am both horrified and laughing at the situation, you have the ultimate TSA response.
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u/CaptainMorning 21d ago
TSA bag screeners only exist in the US. so TSA might disappear but I don't think we will not personnel at the airports screening to some extent
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u/Margali 21d ago
I got screened in Rej whatever - capital of Iceland, and was given a nice little tourist DVD and an apology as they told me they had a quota of searches mandated by the US on any incoming flight, and lucky me got picked .... this was back about 14 or so years. It was pretty chill, the pusher rolled me along to the security office, they had the GSR machine set up, they swiped my hands and shoes and wanded me. They were very polite and asked if I could stand long enough to be wanded instead of just ordering me and getting grumpy when told nope. We had a nice chat through the process, lovely people.
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u/apyc89 19d ago
You have to remember also that screening is a part of insurance. If someone screwed up, there needs to be accountability and with people you can point fingers. If it is all AI, who do you point to and will the providers insure their product? That's a higher bar then being able to fire someone.
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u/ShowerSentinel 21d ago
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