Yes there are false positives. This is an alert system and doesn't have to be perfect. This is the difference between a sensor in a self-driving car and a sensor for something like Shotspotter.

If a self-driving car sensor has a 1% fail rate, then it is useless and would cause crashes and death. It couldn't be used.

But if shotspotter is 1% inaccurate, then it just sends police to a street corner where there is actually just road construction or a volleyball popped. The consequences are pretty low to nil.

Many people might not know this all calls have priorities in a policing system, they are not treated equal. So Shotspotter alerts are very low priority to officers. The same is true for home alarm systems. Home alarm systems trigger false alarms constantly. Police treat them as very low priority as a result. So if a 911 call comes in or an eyewitness reported shooting, or even a wreckless driver or suspected DUI, the police will treat that first. In fact if they are on the way to a shotspotter alert and encounter something else, they will stop for it.

This is to say, that the false positives aren't as important as everyone makes them out to be. If a false positive happens, it means that a cop that's sitting on a random street corner gets moved to a street corner where the false alarm from Shotspotter fired. There's not really any harm being done here.

> The consequences are pretty low to nil.

Having American cops rush to your door thinking violence is happening is not inconsequential. Just a few days ago they shot at a kid who was playing with fireworks, due to a false positive. Also, see swatting and its fatal consequences.

Exactly this. When it comes to American Police the consequences are not deterministically nil

As much as I hate to participate in political discussions, I have to agree here. No US cop would ever respond to gunshots in a casual manner. Think about Swatting.