New York City to test AI-enabled gun scanners in subway system

New York City officials announced a pilot program on Thursday to deploy portable gun scanners in the subway system, part of an effort to deter violence underground and to make the system feel safer. The scanners will be introduced in certain stations after a legally mandated 90-day waiting period, the mayor, Eric Adams, said. "Keeping New Yorkers safe on the subway and maintaining confidence in the system is key to ensuring that New York remains the safest big city in America," said Adams, who also announced a plan to send additional outreach workers into subway stations to try to get people with mental health issues who are living in the system into treatment. Adams said officials would work to identify companies with expertise in weapons-detection technology and that after the waiting period, the scanners would be instituted in some subway stations "where the NYPD will be able to further evaluate the equipment's effectiveness". The scanner that Adams and police officials introduced during Thursday's news conference in a lower Manhattan station came from Evolv, a publicly traded company that has been accused of doctoring the results of software testing to make its scanners appear more effective than they are.