By Todd Feathers Published January 24, 2025 | Comments (0) | The AI weapon detection industry is booming and schools are paying millions of dollars for the systems. Nanzeeba/Shutterstock An AI gun detection system installed in a Nashville, Tennessee high school couldnt spot the gun a 17-year-old used to fatally shoot another student and himself earlier this week, according to district officials. The Omnilert system is designed to activate immediately once it detects [a gun], as we described, it did not detect that weapon in this instance and that, because of the location and where the cameras were positioned, said Sean Braisted, a spokesperson for Metro Nashville Public Schools, according to local news coverage of a press conference on Thursday. Braisted said the system did detect police officers guns when they arrived on the scene and has detected guns in the past, Nashvilles local NBC station reported. The school district agreed to a two-year, $1 million contract with Omnilert in 2023.In an email to Gizmodo, Dave Fraser, CEO of Omnilert, said his heart goes out to the students, families, and greater Nashville community in the wake of the shooting. We can confirm that the Omnilert gun detection system is deployed at MNPS but in this case the location of the shooter and the firearm meant that the weapon was not visible, he said. This is not a case of the firearm not being recognized by the system. The shooting on Wednesday took place in the cafeteria of Antioch High School.Data from GovSpend, which collects information about government contracts, shows that more than 100 cities, school districts, community colleges, and universities have purchased Omnilerts systems. The company is part of an AI-based weapons detection industrywhich also includes companies like Evolv Technologies and ZeroEyesthat is winning multi-million contracts from schools and other government agencies despite mounting evidence that the systems are not as effective as theyre advertised to be. In November, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Evolv, accusing it of deceptively marketing the accuracy of its Express weapon-scanning system. The agency pointed to the Utica, New York school districts Express system, which failed to detect a knife that was used in the October 2022 stabbing of a student. After the incident, the school district increased the systems sensitivity, but that change doubled the rate of false alarms, where the system incorrectly alerted security staff about weapons that didnt exist, according to the FTC.During a pilot at New York Citys Jacobi Medical Center, more than 85% of the alerts Evolv scanners generated over a seven-month period were false alarms, and another 14% involved law enforcement officers, according to documents obtained by Hell Gate. When the city then tested Evolv in subway stations, it detected no guns, 12 knives, and generated 118 false alarms over 30 days, according to City & State New York. In March, Philadelphias public transit agency, SEPTA, ended its contract with ZeroEyes because the companys weapons detection system failed to integrate with SEPTAs security cameras. A 2023 report by the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory raised similar concerns about ZeroEyess ability to work with anything but high-quality camera images. The evaluators also complained that the company didnt provide data about the systems accuracy.Daily NewsletterYou May Also Like By Thomas Maxwell Published January 22, 2025 By Florence Ion Published January 22, 2025 By Florence Ion Published January 22, 2025 By Matt Novak Published January 22, 2025 By Florence Ion Published January 22, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published January 21, 2025