A 16-year-old was handcuffed because AI thought an empty Doritos bag was a gun.

AI gone wrong again. In Baltimore County, a 16-year-old high schooler named Taki Allen got swarmed by police because an AI thought his bag of Doritos was a gun.

Allen was hanging out outside Kenwood High after football practice when eight police cars rolled up, officers jumped out with weapons drawn, and told him to get on his knees.

Turns out the school's surveillance system - powered by AI - flagged his crumpled chip bag as a firearm and triggered an alert.

Baltimore County Police confirmed he wasn’t arrested, just handcuffed while they checked things out. After finding the bag in a nearby trash can, one cop even told him, “I guess the way you were eating chips made it pick it up as a gun.” Yeah, not comforting.

The school superintendent defended the system, saying it worked as designed since it flagged a possible threat for humans to verify. Allen, unsurprisingly, disagrees - he now waits inside after practice because he doesn’t feel safe enough to eat chips outside.

The AI company behind the mishap, Omnilert, apologized and said its system “functioned as intended.” Local officials are now calling for a review of AI surveillance use in schools.

So, moral of the story: maybe don’t snack too aggressively near security cameras.