Well, in Chicago they're taking the first step to actually making Thoughtcrime an honest-to-Go real offence.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/19/5...this-computer-predicts-crime-but-is-it-racist
So the Chicago PD has implemented a computer that claims to predict crime before it happens. Then "friends" come to your house to say hi.
I actually work daily with people who write and maintain algorithms that detect criminal behaviour. From time to time, I even suggest algorithm modifications myself as part of my job.
Granted we're just some stupid bloated corporation that can barely find it's own arsehole, but while those programs are useful in their own way, there's no way you could rely on them as the first point of judgment. Worse, I see certain people who constantly abuse the system to boost their performance numbers or use them to justify a "gut feeling" they have when it's pretty clear they're harassing a legitimate person, usually a new immigrant, or a kid - someone who can't fight back, who doesn't know how to raise hell or complain.
I get that this is supposed to increase police efficiency, but the thing is you can also boost police efficiency (mostly against low-level crime) by instituting a good old fashioned police state. Regardless of the methods used - old or new - it is incredibly inappropriate to proactively and personally approach targeted individuals with no or minimal criminal records and say "WE'RE WATCHING YOU!" Like, the article is actually describing behaviour typical of police and state officers in actual police states. Only the justification is now BECAUSE SCIENCE rather than a mustachioed leader who says his bully boys can do whatever they want. But the end behaviour is the same.
I've seen a few people saying this is a good thing because it'll work and get results. I really don't think people understand just how fallible this thing is and will continue to be. No machine is going to perfectly predict the future. Not for now anyway and not even remotely closely. I know we're making leaps and bounds in computing technology and in social group analysis and all that. Yes, the NSA has done a great job of harvesting data and blah blah blah.
But suggesting we can reliably predict the future, never mind at Hari Seldon society-as-a-whole levels, but at the individual level is absurd-to-the-twentieth-power. The possibility for error and abuse here is exponentially higher than any possible benefit.
Modern Justice systems are supposed to have massive and repeated safeguards simply because the possibilities for mistakes, laziness, and outright abuse are just too high to risk. It's why we accept something as seemingly unbalanced as Blackstone's Formulation* as sacrosanct. Because we have accepted that a non-zero amount of crime will occur because other social needs trump the need for police efficiency. Because we need safeguards that stringent to balance the probability of abuse by our arbiters of the law.
This represents a huge erosion of those safeguards, as well as an encroachment by the state on the most private space you have - your own thoughts. On especially vulnerable people, no less.
This is straight up Orwellian ****.
*The principle that states "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/19/5...this-computer-predicts-crime-but-is-it-racist
So the Chicago PD has implemented a computer that claims to predict crime before it happens. Then "friends" come to your house to say hi.
I actually work daily with people who write and maintain algorithms that detect criminal behaviour. From time to time, I even suggest algorithm modifications myself as part of my job.
Granted we're just some stupid bloated corporation that can barely find it's own arsehole, but while those programs are useful in their own way, there's no way you could rely on them as the first point of judgment. Worse, I see certain people who constantly abuse the system to boost their performance numbers or use them to justify a "gut feeling" they have when it's pretty clear they're harassing a legitimate person, usually a new immigrant, or a kid - someone who can't fight back, who doesn't know how to raise hell or complain.
I get that this is supposed to increase police efficiency, but the thing is you can also boost police efficiency (mostly against low-level crime) by instituting a good old fashioned police state. Regardless of the methods used - old or new - it is incredibly inappropriate to proactively and personally approach targeted individuals with no or minimal criminal records and say "WE'RE WATCHING YOU!" Like, the article is actually describing behaviour typical of police and state officers in actual police states. Only the justification is now BECAUSE SCIENCE rather than a mustachioed leader who says his bully boys can do whatever they want. But the end behaviour is the same.
I've seen a few people saying this is a good thing because it'll work and get results. I really don't think people understand just how fallible this thing is and will continue to be. No machine is going to perfectly predict the future. Not for now anyway and not even remotely closely. I know we're making leaps and bounds in computing technology and in social group analysis and all that. Yes, the NSA has done a great job of harvesting data and blah blah blah.
But suggesting we can reliably predict the future, never mind at Hari Seldon society-as-a-whole levels, but at the individual level is absurd-to-the-twentieth-power. The possibility for error and abuse here is exponentially higher than any possible benefit.
Modern Justice systems are supposed to have massive and repeated safeguards simply because the possibilities for mistakes, laziness, and outright abuse are just too high to risk. It's why we accept something as seemingly unbalanced as Blackstone's Formulation* as sacrosanct. Because we have accepted that a non-zero amount of crime will occur because other social needs trump the need for police efficiency. Because we need safeguards that stringent to balance the probability of abuse by our arbiters of the law.
This represents a huge erosion of those safeguards, as well as an encroachment by the state on the most private space you have - your own thoughts. On especially vulnerable people, no less.
This is straight up Orwellian ****.
*The principle that states "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"
Last edited:
