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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Yea, scary how much we're allowing courts to simply rubber-stamp "Computer says you're wrong." If a software is going to act as a witness against me in a civil or criminal case, I would want to be able to at least cross-examine that software. Who knows how crappy and non-functional this automatic, blockchain, AI-based time tracking software is?

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This has been an issue in criminal prosecutions. Breath machine: You are over a .08 BAC. Defendant: No I wasn't. Let me see the source code. Courts and companies: NO! It's secret. [1]

[1] https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2021/sep/15/clash-bet...

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63205335

"More than 700 Post Office managers were given criminal convictions after a new computer software system, built by the Japanese firm Fujitsu, wrongly showed money was going missing from individual branches between 2000 and 2014."

Did the woman deny it?

I'm fine with software making the accusation, as long as software isn't able to override the accused's sworn testimony that the accusations are false.

I’m usually guilty of not reading the whole article, but this time I did.

She admitted on video that she misrepresented some working hours “by mistake.” That video was cited in the ruling.

She admits the wrongdoing of billing for hours on projects she wasn't even involved with. She does dispute some details about how the time is calculated, but those were explored in the proceeding.

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