

Minority Report preCog like software "sending the police before there’s a crime" - rockarage
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/us/16police.html?_r=1

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tptacek
Can someone fix the grotesquely editorialized title on this story? "PreCog"?
The software picked a _location_ to patrol. Locations don't have cognition.

The real title of this story is "Sending the Police Before There’s a Crime".

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danilocampos
> The software picked a location to patrol. Locations don't have cognition.

The _software_ is being compared to _Minority Report's_ precognitive mutants,
who directed police forces to avert crimes before they happened.

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tptacek
Based on what suspects were _thinking_ ; it's a dystopian fable. This is just
good policework.

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Homunculiheaded
To be fair it is not the case of the 'thought police' in Minority Report.
Suspects aren't arrested based on what they are 'thinking', but rather the
agreement of 3 supernatural precogs that can see events before they happen.
You could replace the precogs with amazingly sophisticated AI, and the points
in the film still hold.

So while I agree that this is mostly good police work the case here is of
using data analysis techniques to predict likely suspects. What actually makes
this story most like 'minority report' is that the suspects where picked up
for prior offenses, but investigated essentially because an algorithm said
that people in that area at that time are more likely to commit a crime.

I do think this is completely awesome, and a great idea, but I also think the
title is not excessively overblown.

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Freakoi
How do we stamp out ignorance? That's my question.

I call pedantic troll. Don't feed them.

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pyre
Deploying police to areas where crimes are statistically more likely to occur
just seems like better allocation of resources, not necessarily 'pre-crime' or
'thought-crime.'

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mattmanser
Indeed, it actually sounds like what police work should be in the first place.

Road gets burgled ever week at the same time.

Perhaps we should stake it out?

Revolutionary, the police discover common sense!

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sbov
From reading the article it seems like it's potentially used to not do that:

“But I’m looking at a map from last week and the whole assumption is that next
week is like last week. The computer eliminates the bias that people have.”

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lotu
I doubt it. It's probably that the software is looking at the map from last
week, and the weeks before instead the person deciding that finding the map
from last week is too much of a pain in the ass. Not to mention having to
coordinate with the other officers so they don't all stake out the same
parking lot. I'd bet the software is mostly doing things people would do them
selves if they had the energy, patience, and organizational skills to do so.

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hexis
This isn't "pre-cognition" any more than when Wal-Mart's supply-chain
management software is.

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enjalot
Walmart's supply-chain management software sounds like pre-cognition to me, at
least in the sense that they are making some pretty good decisions about the
future based on predictions.

It's just like artificial intelligence, once you get how it works it doesn't
seem all that intelligent.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect#AI_is_whatever_hasn.2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect#AI_is_whatever_hasn.27t_been_done_yet)

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blake8086
The interesting debate will occur when the police argue that statistics
constitute "probable cause" for an otherwise unconstitutional search.

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dminor
Well, this program is essentially spitting out probabilities, so I guess it's
a question of how predictive it actually is and how probable "probable cause"
needs to be.

Another question is: how will criminals respond if/when this becomes
widespread?

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eric-hu
With this program, I could see people using the predictions to tell them where
_not_ to commit a crime.

Want to steal a car? Look for discrete areas that aren't flagged by this
program.

I'm sure this system is under heavy lockdown, though, and would require up-to-
date police information.

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pmiller2
People seem to be missing (or ignoring) the fact that this software doesn't
direct police to arrest people before they've committed a crime. At worst,
they end up questioning some people who wouldn't have otherwise been targeted,
and those people might be arrested for some previous offense (such as a bench
warrant). With that in mind, this is really nothing like _Minority Report_ at
all.

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tsellon
I found this interesting: "Mr. Friend said the early indications were
encouraging. Burglaries were down 27 percent in July compared with July 2010,
suggesting that the targeted policing may have a deterrent effect, he said."

Rather than just catch criminals, it reduces the probability that a crime will
be committed. The least expensive arrest is the one you don't have to make.
Hope this pans out.

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pavel_lishin
If this were a Michael Bay film, this is merely Step 1 in an evil mastermind's
plans.

Step 2 is to direct the police away from his crime scene;

Step 3 is to commit the crime.

Think Die Hard With A Vengeance meets Speed 2.

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frisco
You haven't seen Minority Report, have you? (nor looked it up, despite it
clearly being referenced in the title of this post)

