Yeah and I'm sure that Chicago detectives had absolutely no clue about those 400 people, they really needed a piece of expensive software to tell them where to look for. The trend is to think that technology will solve all problems, but it's just wishful thinking imho.
Software is expensive to develop, but once developed it is actually very cost-effective. It can be copied over to other departments at a fraction of the cost of a detective salary.
Software will continue to eat the world. Criminals use new technology to stay ahead of the police, so the police has to stay up-to-date too. Data mining software helps the police do their jobs more efficiently and honestly. Factors don't lie, machine learning actively combats bias. While human intuition can be flawed and biased.
There is a danger than humans grant too much authority to computer systems, but there is also an opportunity to remove or dampen cognitive bias.
Wouldn't it be the case that, for example, those in the drug business are far more likely to harm their competition than their market?
And the landlord of the pub where this happened was very lucky a few of the lads didn't go down and make our displeasure known.
Don't let the cartoon characters fool you. IMO The complexity and depth of this series (and a lot of sci-fi anime) far surpasses the likes of minority report and hollywood sci-fi in general. My description really doesn't do it justice.
hoses self down with Ubik
An automated justice system wouldn't be biased by human prejudice, ignorance or fear. It doesn't get tired, doesn't feel pain or pity or remorse. It would be able to impartially and accurately process vast amounts of data - far more than a human, and the actions of the drones could be completely auditable. Drones won't lie on the stand to protect their fellow drones, or tamper with evidence.
You could walk down the street surrounded by police drones and be confident that you're not being profiled based on racist or religious bigotry, but pure mathematics and statistics. In every conceivable way, an armed drone with a license to kill is safer, faster, more reliable than a human. One only has to look at the current justice system in any country to see that humans are simply not capable of properly judging the motives of, or punishing, other humans in any reasonable way.
People will simply have to accept that the day will come when human-applied justice is viewed with the same ridicule and scorn that witch-burning is today... as the vicious, superstitious barbarism of an ignorant past.
An automated system is written by people and those prejudices can still sneak in...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/upshot/when-algorithms-dis...
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/04/online_advertisings_racism_m...
When we get super-human AI, then maybe we can hope for that.
We can't outsource our moral imperative to computers, no matter how much we don't want to have the conversation about actual causes of crime and incarceration in the US...
Given the problems in police departments (which have fortunately started to appearing in the news), giving the police a system that will essentially let them see what you want to see is a terrible idea. Police work is already full of "forensic tools" that don't actually work (like idea that fingerprints actually identify someone uniquely, or the various techniques that are examples of the Birthday Paradox).
While I'm sure that it's possible to use modern techniques to estimate where crime will occur, it won't work in practice. There are simply too many ways to bias the results (intentionally or not). I suspect giving police this kind of tool is simply a way to give legitimacy and cover to their bad behavior.
> including information about friendships, social media activity
COINTELPRO is a helluva drug.
> advocates say predictive policing can help improve police-community relations by focusing on the people most likely to become involved in violent crime.
That sounds suspiciously like an excuse to improve white communities, by focusing on the blacks (who have historically been seen as "violent savages" by racists).
> because our predictive tool shows us you might commit a crime at some point in the future
The big question is how long until someone tries to use that "predictive tool" as probable cause.
To say that other tools have a bad track record may count as a valid argument, but to me, it is a weak and fatalistic one. Judge each tool on its own merit or discard all tools as useless seems like an easy choice.
Predicting crime works in practice and theory. These models are not black boxes, they can be introspected. Bias can be detected and removed.
COINTELPRO was a program to infiltrate and disturb organizations that the state viewed as unwelcome. Monitoring social media activity is common detective work. The modern equivalent of an officer peeking over the fence in your back garden to see a stolen motorbike. Now they can use Google Maps for that. This is public information: The criminals feel free and safe enough to post and brag about their crimes on Facebook.
Removing or combating criminal elements in any community will improve that community, regardless of skin color. Black youth is helped, not suppressed, when gang recruiters are identified and punished.
Predictive tools are already used as probable cause. Prisoners in Guantanamo Bay can get a brain-wave reader test. This device will tell you what someone is thinking about and may reveal the plans of future terrorist attack.
Yes. I know that. Apophenia is the correct term. Your fancy machine that predicts crime is only as good as the data it is fed and is made worse by the person who interprets the results. Both of these are easily biased.
> Bias can be detected and removed.
Just like how they removed the numerous biases, assumptions, and bad methodology that are well-known problems with breathalysers? Even if the model was theoretically accurate, the implementation can (and will) be wrong. You seem to be using a just-world assumption that doesn't have lazy, incompetent or malicious people.
> Monitoring social media is common detective work
It can be both. While these methods may be useful for going after stupid criminals, you're ignoring that it is also useful when targeting activists, political dissidents, etc. If you think this doesn't happen, you haven't been paying attention.
You're problem is that you are assuming it is only "criminals" that are targeted, but you live in a world where, to use an obvious example, some people assume that any black person is a "criminal".
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/03/am...
> This overreliance on imprisonment can be seen most starkly, and sadly, by looking at the juvenile population, which is just under 71,000 nationally. Around 11,600 are imprisoned for "technical violations" of their probation or parole terms, rather than because they committed a new crime. In 11 states such juvenile prisoners outnumber those in for crimes against other people. In only one state (Massachusetts) did juveniles imprisoned for crimes committed against people comprise a majority of juvenile prisoners. Around 3,000 are locked up for things that aren't crimes for adults, "such as running away, truancy and incorrigibility." Incarcerated children are less likely to graduate high-school and more likely to spend time in prison as adults. If America is interested in reducing its prison population, locking up fewer juveniles for silly reasons would be a good place to start.
So, yet again software is the new force-multiplier? Strict (IMNHO crazy) sentencing guides, arguably designed for the purpose of reducing crime by being a deterrent, now leads to even more filling up of prisons due to targeted (ab)use against certain groups?
On a side note, I wonder how these algorithms handle police brutality etc. I can just imagine sitting in such a meeting, and seeing a couple of police officers in full uniform popping up on that mugshot wall of shame...
Instead, it developed into a story of what amounts to pre-meditated blind rage against any and all associated with a given criminal.
This isn't new. And it's exactly what we don't need more of.
Step 2: Run the results of that through the computer.
Step 3: The unbiased computer tells me that disliked groups are more likely to be charged with crimes! That justifies my discrimination! I knew they were up to no good! And it's not me, the COMPUTER says it!
“I was disturbed,” said Mr. Brown
Sounds like intimidation.
Interesting (eerie) parallel to the intro in the TV series "Person of Interest", although supposedly this system doesn't get its data from the NSA (as with parallel construction etc), but rather the information comes from more-or-less open data (legal surveillance etc) -- and of course it isn't vigilantes but police that will, 'victim or perpetrator, if your number's up (...) find you':
"You are being watched. The government has a secret system: a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know, because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people; people like you. Crimes the government considered 'irrelevant'. They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find you".
Not to mention, I'm sure you can see how this is a breach of justice.
