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New Crime-Predicting Algorithm Borrows From Apollo Space Mission Tech (digitaltrends.com)
Researchers from Georgia Tech and the UK's University of Surrey have developed a new predictive policing algorithm that aims to better manage police resources and gain an upper hand in the war on crime. It reportedly uses technology that's been previously used in weather forecasting and the Apollo space missions. Digital Trends reports: The new algorithm built on previous work carried out by researchers from the University of California and police forces in both the U.S. and U.K. Their 2015 research showed how a predictive policing algorithm could accurately predict between 1.4 and 2.2 times more urban crime than specialist crime analysts. By making recommendations about where to patrol, the algorithm led to a 7.4 percent reduction in crime. However, while effective, this approach has also been criticized due to concerns about possible racial profiling and the underreporting of crime. The new algorithm has so far been demonstrated on a data set of more than 1,000 violent gang crimes in Los Angeles carried out between 1999 and 2002. Early conclusions suggest that the upgraded predictive tool could prove superior for coping with the constantly fluctuating world of real-time crime prediction. The researchers published their paper in the journal Computational Statistics & Data Analysis.
> there's nothing to be done UNTIL the crime is COMMITTED.
If they could predict which block was likely to have a spike in crime 3 or 4 days in advance, that would be enough time to finish their donuts an drive a patrol car over there, potentially preventing the crime. If the presence of the patrol car didn't determine the criminal, the cops could actually catch a bad guy in the act for once, rather than taking a report the next day. I know, that's funny. They'll still just be taking reports after the fact.
there's nothing to be done UNTIL the crime is COMMITTED.
Nonsense. Law enforcement works best when it is focused on PREVENTING crimes, rather than reacting to crimes.
Using stupid phrases like "the war on crime" is not helpful. That is the exact opposite of the mentality we should have.
Historically, by far the most cost effective way to reduce crime has been to improve prenatal and early childhood nutrition and remove environmental pollutants, especially heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and mercury. Today, black children in America have twice the average blood lead levels as white children, and prison inmates have three times the average. There is a lot more we can do at very low cost.
Look, far be it from me to step on your Pedantic Jerk routine, because I know how much it means to you, but you are wrong.
We live in a democratic republic. Some decisions are made by direct democracy and others are made via democratically-elected representatives. The modifier, "Constitutional" is really pretty meaningless in this context. It just means we have a constitution. That alone does not define or describe our actual governmental system.
Yes, it is a republic. Yes, it is democratic. Yes, you're a Pedantic Jerk, but yes, you're wrong.
This would go against the intent of the founding fathers, who believed the minority should be oppressing the majority. That's why they structured the Constitution so that it takes power out of the hands of people and puts it into the hands of wealthy elite. Unfortunately, they didn't anticipate that in 2018 the "wealthy elite" would end up being a babbling and degenerate prevaricator who hates reading and gets all his information about the world from Fox & Friends.
You are welcome on my lawn.
How is it racial profiling? Who's putting race into the prediction models?
Even if race is not explicitly included, it is likely strongly correlated with other inputs, such as zipcodes, neighborhoods, names, prior arrest records, profile of the victim (most crime is intra-racial), etc. Since REALITY is that crime is correlated with race, any "AI" will quickly locate proxies for race in the data.
If we want to eliminate racial bias, it is not effective to modify the inputs. It is better to just modify the outputs by multiplying by a race based fudge factor to make the results politically acceptable.
Yeah, better to make the police less effective incase someone's feelings get hurt.
The alternative is democracy, which is the last step towards tyranny, as the majority will always vote to oppress the minority.
This is rubbish.There are plenty of democracies in Western Europe, and none of them are closer to tyranny than the USA.
Thanks to a voting system that allows more than two parties to flourish, voters organize in smaller blocks and it's pretty rare for one party to have a 50%+ share of the votes. This means government is done by coalitions of two or more parties. There is no single majority block any more, and any oppression of minorities becomes pretty difficult. Politicians also know that vilifying their opponents is counterproductive because one day they may have to form a coalition with the party they're vilifying now. That means party relations are a lot less toxic than in the USA, and coalition governments spend less time dismantling the work of the previous coalition than is common in the US.
Due to the two-party system in the US, it is closer to tyranny (using your definition of 'the majority oppressing the minority') than the West-European democracies.