Highly unlikely that’ll be the case forever. We can already do population level behavioral prediction for advertising purposes. It’s just a matter of time, quality data generation, and finding the right algorithm before we will be able to accurately predict where and when police resources should be deployed to efficiently deter crime. Especially since we already have a decent idea as to the factors that generally lead to spikes in crime-rates things like: poverty, widespread social isolation and low social cohesion, alcohol and drug use, perceived opportunity, and the presence of easily victimized populations such as racial minorities, religious minorities, the disabled, and the LGBT+ community.
Tbh, we don’t even need such an algorithm because we already know that the best ways to reduce crime are to increase protections for those minorities, alleviate poverty, reduce the presence of alcohol selling establishments, provide addiction/mental illness care, promote social cohesion, and have community events where law enforcement builds trust and bonds with their local communities, promoting co-operation and mutual respect between law enforcement and the people they are supposed to protect. In other words, the best ways to combat crime are the exact opposite of what everyone in the USA has generally been doing, especially conservative areas. Predictive policing is only even desirable because we don’t want to do the hard work of actually improving people’s lives and building communities where crime isn’t something people have/want to consider.
At best we can do what we already do and make estimates about groups, kind of like how we can have a fairly accurate predictions for climate but weather for a specific person’s house is extremely unreliable in any detail a couple days ahead except for massive weather systems like hurricanes. As you noted we already know the causes, but trends do not predict which individuals will commit crimes.
There will be no point in time that an algorithm will be able to predict that an individual will commit a crime at a specific point in time.
s you noted we already know the causes, but trends do not predict which individuals will commit crimes.
There will be no point in time that an algorithm will be able to predict that an individual will commit a crime at a specific point in time.
I think we might’ve had a bit of miscommunication here. I wasn’t talking about predictive policing at an individual level, that’s highly unlikely to be possible, at least with traditional computing technologies (not to mention that individual predictive policing isn’t even desirable for a multitude of reasons explored by many dystopian fiction authors throughout history) but rather at an area level. Being able to predict where and when crimes are likely to occur and with regularity, predicting that a specific drug store will probably be robbed within a narrow window of time for example. Even if such an algorithm was only accurate within a couple of hours it would fundamentally change how law enforcement functions, as well as the purpose it serves. Instead of merely enforcing the law after a crime is committed they could prevent crime/catch the criminal mid act without the need for informants, and without even knowing who they are gonna be arresting prior to catching them.
Highly unlikely that’ll be the case forever. We can already do population level behavioral prediction for advertising purposes. It’s just a matter of time, quality data generation, and finding the right algorithm before we will be able to accurately predict where and when police resources should be deployed to efficiently deter crime. Especially since we already have a decent idea as to the factors that generally lead to spikes in crime-rates things like: poverty, widespread social isolation and low social cohesion, alcohol and drug use, perceived opportunity, and the presence of easily victimized populations such as racial minorities, religious minorities, the disabled, and the LGBT+ community.
Tbh, we don’t even need such an algorithm because we already know that the best ways to reduce crime are to increase protections for those minorities, alleviate poverty, reduce the presence of alcohol selling establishments, provide addiction/mental illness care, promote social cohesion, and have community events where law enforcement builds trust and bonds with their local communities, promoting co-operation and mutual respect between law enforcement and the people they are supposed to protect. In other words, the best ways to combat crime are the exact opposite of what everyone in the USA has generally been doing, especially conservative areas. Predictive policing is only even desirable because we don’t want to do the hard work of actually improving people’s lives and building communities where crime isn’t something people have/want to consider.
At best we can do what we already do and make estimates about groups, kind of like how we can have a fairly accurate predictions for climate but weather for a specific person’s house is extremely unreliable in any detail a couple days ahead except for massive weather systems like hurricanes. As you noted we already know the causes, but trends do not predict which individuals will commit crimes.
There will be no point in time that an algorithm will be able to predict that an individual will commit a crime at a specific point in time.
I think we might’ve had a bit of miscommunication here. I wasn’t talking about predictive policing at an individual level, that’s highly unlikely to be possible, at least with traditional computing technologies (not to mention that individual predictive policing isn’t even desirable for a multitude of reasons explored by many dystopian fiction authors throughout history) but rather at an area level. Being able to predict where and when crimes are likely to occur and with regularity, predicting that a specific drug store will probably be robbed within a narrow window of time for example. Even if such an algorithm was only accurate within a couple of hours it would fundamentally change how law enforcement functions, as well as the purpose it serves. Instead of merely enforcing the law after a crime is committed they could prevent crime/catch the criminal mid act without the need for informants, and without even knowing who they are gonna be arresting prior to catching them.