Computers That Accurately Guess What Gangs Did What Crimes
from the minority-report? dept
A few folks sent over this report of efforts by some researchers at UCLA to create an algorithm that can accurately take data on existing gang-related crimes, and use it to predict what gangs were involved in new crimes. It certainly has that "minority report -- pre-crime" feel to it, though I can certainly see where it could be useful. What concerns me, though, is that systems like this are only as accurate as the data they use. And, as has been reported elsewhere, one of the unintended consequences of such computer analysis of crime data is that it drives police departments to falsify or change crime reports in order to make their own numbers look better. So it makes you wonder how accurate those reports will be if the incentives to fudge the actual crime data continue to be in place.
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The cost of being wrong
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Re: The cost of being wrong
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Re: Re: The cost of being wrong
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There is something called the CS Heisenberg Principle
The relationship of how 'knowing something' will end up altering it... seems relevant here.
That being said, this isn't 'exactly' right, but I get the same feeling here. Basically the more that people know this method is being used, the more that people will use it "swat" other gangs. (IE... perform a gang attack 'where/how/when' another (you're competitor) is 'suppose' to do a crime, and then have them blamed for it.
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Re: There is something called the CS Heisenberg Principle
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Re: There is something called the CS Heisenberg Principle
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Polygraph test are allowed in court, and they are notoriously easy to fake. Is this next?
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Meh?
Data quality is a valid point, however as it has other implications too this project shouldn't be blamed for it.
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Alternatively, it could be considered an incentive NOT to fudge the numbers.
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Once the gangs find out who's programming this......
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But really what is needed is a total retraining of the police force they don't know how to operate in a world with civilians, the organization is incompetent not because there is no intelligent person in there but because the culture inside is dumb, something people call collective intelligence, the ground rules are wrong and so the outcomes from those institutions are unacceptable.
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It would certainly amuse the hell out of me if, at some future date, they consulted the machine to see who knocked over the liquor store, and discovered it was the cops.
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data
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The Batcomputer
Furthermore, in the episode "The Londinium Larcenies", where the evil Lord Ffogg was stealing the queen's priceless snuff boxes, and Batman had to be called across the Atlantic because the venerable Ireland Yard was unable to solve the crime, the Batcomputer (and other bat cave equipment) was set up in a dungeon directly below a country manor conveniently located directly below a country manor rented by Bruce Wayne. So obviously the bat computer also runs on 220 volts. Did those UCLA researchers think of that?
(Do I win the prize for longest run on sentence?)
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Re: The Batcomputer
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At the moment - that is true. At the moment.
Of course, that's all what was said about the cameras at intersections too - "they will never actually issue tickets... " blah, blah, blah.
Oh yeah, lol - ans this too..
Social Security Number - "never to be used for purposes of identification"
Humanity's legacy is one big long line of "things that won't/can't happen" - and then they do, almost always to the benefit of the powerful and to the demise of the common people.
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Sorta...
Remember that line from the movie Tron?
"Dr. Walter Gibbs: Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop."
But yes, in the end it's the people who are paying to put all these computer networks together - and it's not done out of a love for technology - that might be why most of us are in the business - but for much of the world - computers are about *control*.
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Kill it with fire
The only thing this app is going to do is further blunt the already dull tools that comprise the bulk of our police forces.
Try sticking with good old detective work.
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Computer use for gang-related crimes
Police reports are pretty questionable as it is (there is reason to believe the police, who are trained to "think quickly" are biased on a number of bases, often without even realizing it).
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