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Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

nytimes.com

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Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#31

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

mentat wrote: post #21
jmnicolas wrote: post #15

"In Chicago, the police have developed a “heat list” of 400 people who are considered far more likely than the average person to be involved in violent crime. Factors in compiling that list included their criminal records, social circles and gang connections. Also a factor was whether they had been victims of an assault or a shooting." Yeah and I'm sure that Chicago detectives had absolutely no clue about those 400 p…

Instead of protecting and helping victims, expect them to retaliate and be waiting when they do... Awesome.

Exactly and as having been in the wrong place at the wrong time this rankles and I did have at the time dissuade my one of my coworkers from "accidentally" putting the perp on the kiddie fiddlers regsister.

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.

Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#32

Post by jellicle »

Step 1: Discriminatory policing against disliked groups.

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!

Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#33

Post by jMyles »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #31
mentat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of protecting and helping victims, expect them to retaliate and be waiting when they do... Awesome.

Exactly and as having been in the wrong place at the wrong time this rankles and I did have at the time dissuade my one of my coworkers from "accidentally" putting the perp on the kiddie fiddlers regsister. 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.

Are you a markov chain bot?

Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#35

Post by rmxt »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #30
smtddr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>An automated justice system wouldn't be biased by human prejudice, ignorance or fear 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...

Those articles show that a completely inhuman intelligence, with no intrinsic biases of it's own, reproduces the conclusions that allegedly come from human bias. I.e., it turns out that (sometimes) racism and sexism are useful and predictive heuristics. Of course, being in the NYTimes and Salon, they need to obfuscate this point and appeal to standard mood affiliation.

Since you claim that "racism and sexism are useful and predictive heuristics," does that mean mainstream society should accept/tolerate/promote such belief systems? Who is it exactly that you think would find these heuristics useful?

Also, describing the results of any code/program written by a human as a "completely inhuman intelligence" is a tenuous claim at best.

Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#36

Post by smtddr »

rmxt wrote: post #35
yummyfajitas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those articles show that a completely inhuman intelligence, with no intrinsic biases of it's own, reproduces the conclusions that allegedly come from human bias. I.e., it turns out that (sometimes) racism and sexism are useful and predictive heuristics. Of course, being in the NYTimes and Salon, they need to obfuscate this point and appeal to standard mood affiliation.

Since you claim that "racism and sexism are useful and predictive heuristics," does that mean mainstream society should accept/tolerate/promote such belief systems? Who is it exactly that you think would find these heuristics useful? Also, describing the results of any code/program written by a human as a "completely inhuman intelligence" is a tenuous claim at best.

Just fyi, several people have tried engaging this person in similar discussions before... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8613711

Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#37

Post by fweespeech »

_nedR wrote: post #25
fijal wrote: post #9

I'm a bit surprised noone brought up minority report. Philip K Dick living a good afterlife :-)

I am more reminded about Psycho Pass ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2379308/ ) a terrific anime tv series. It basically explores a future in which a person's criminal intent (called their crime coefficient) along with other mental attributes (collectively referred to as one's psycho pass) is judged by the Sibyl system - A system that works so well that it acts as judge, jury and executioner with little human input. It…

Yeah, its one of the best Anime I've seen in the psat 5 years or so. :)

Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#38

Post by [deleted] »

smtddr wrote: post #36
rmxt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you claim that "racism and sexism are useful and predictive heuristics," does that mean mainstream society should accept/tolerate/promote such belief systems? Who is it exactly that you think would find these heuristics useful? Also, describing the results of any code/program written by a human as a "completely inhuman intelligence" is a tenuous claim at best.

Just fyi, several people have tried engaging this person in similar discussions before... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8613711

[deleted]

Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#39

Post by Raphmedia »

_nedR wrote: post #25
fijal wrote: post #9

I'm a bit surprised noone brought up minority report. Philip K Dick living a good afterlife :-)

I am more reminded about Psycho Pass ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2379308/ ) a terrific anime tv series. It basically explores a future in which a person's criminal intent (called their crime coefficient) along with other mental attributes (collectively referred to as one's psycho pass) is judged by the Sibyl system - A system that works so well that it acts as judge, jury and executioner with little human input. It…

The scene where the "cops" have to arrest (or was it kill?) the victim of a rape because her crime coefficient increased was pretty harsh.

Re: Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

#40

Post by Baghard »

jmnicolas wrote: post #15

"In Chicago, the police have developed a “heat list” of 400 people who are considered far more likely than the average person to be involved in violent crime. Factors in compiling that list included their criminal records, social circles and gang connections. Also a factor was whether they had been victims of an assault or a shooting." Yeah and I'm sure that Chicago detectives had absolutely no clue about those 400 p…

They probably needed the software for this indeed. My local police department did not even cooperate with other local police departments. Profiles and reports for a criminal vanished, once they settled somewhere else. That is just throwing information away. This problem still exists in Europe. A sex offender from Belgium can move to Germany and become a janitor at a school.

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.

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