📢 “AI surveillance” in the U.S. was actually cheap offshore labor

What looked like cutting-edge policing tech has turned out to be a global sweatshop. Flock, the largest provider of “AI-powered” cameras for U.S. police, was barely using AI at all. Instead, much of the work was done manually by low-paid freelancers in the Philippines.

• The workers handled everything: reading license plates, identifying car makes and colors, tagging pedestrians, and even transcribing accident audio.
• Cities bought these systems expecting automated intelligence but got human eyes quietly scanning American str