Cops Used DNA to Predict a Suspect's Face, Tried to Run Facial Recognition on It | Hacker News Reader

Cops Used DNA to Predict a Suspect's Face, Tried to Run Facial Recognition on It

wired.com

27 pointsElement_15 comments

Sir, you're under arrest for looking like this Dalle generated picture of a murderer in the style of Post-Impressionism.

They have the original DNA so at least it would be very easy to determine guilt or innocence?

If someone is under arrest can they refuse to give a DNA sample? Can cops take some hair left behind?

Unless the lab makes a mistake and contaminates the suspects DNA sample, then you win yourself wrongful imprisonment...

Spidey sense is picking up all sorts of Minority Report x JBIG2 vibes on this one.

It's imperfect but better than nothing. Detectives do understand limitations of such techniques.

Of course DNA exhibit phenotypes, so if it's an opportunity to know the skin color, the shape of the face, the eyes colors, the gender, etc.

Pair that with the place where the person was likely born and potential relatives (ancestry) and you may find someone interesting, or who knows something useful.

A non peer reviewed, non validated method. I wouldn’t want to be picked up as a suspect because of that, then have the police (lawfully) lie to me about what evidence they have and try to pressure me into confessing.

> It's imperfect but better than nothing.

Is there any evidence supporting this statement? It could very well be _worse_ than nothing.

Damm, that’s scary. How do they go fröm DNA to a whole human face though?

They don't. That's kinda the point. The service takes known genetic markers for things like dark hair, skin tone, bushy eyebrows, freckles. And generates a mockup face with those features.

Parabon NanoLabs ran the suspect’s DNA through its proprietary machine learning model

By judicious application of AI grift, basically.

The term is "mathwashing".

See Figure 2 from this PNAS paper from J Craig Venter[1]. It caused quite a stir at the time, and not because people thought it was useful or wise.

1 = https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1711125114

https://archive.is/5kXrh

https://web.archive.org/web/20240125142841/https://www.wired...

I'd like to see them run a known person's DNA through their system and see what it does. I'm sure the company has done this already, and they should share the results with the police to give them an idea of how reliable the results are.

Cops would not be expected to understand the limitations of this otherwise. Although I do give them credit for trying to solve a cold case.

13 comments 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39092994

16 comments 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39106224

Reply on news.ycombinator.com