NYC police have spent millions on a tech company that claims it can use AI to monitor social media and predict future criminals

Technology@lemmy.world – 289 points – 10 months ago

NYC police have spent millions on a tech company that claims it can use AI to monitor social media and predict future criminals::The New York Police Department paid Voyager Labs more than $8 million in 2018. The company says it uses AI to analyze criminal behavior online.

Reference to Tom cruise movie or other dystopia cyberpunk movie goes here

Ooh, ooh. I'll play.

Minority Report

Psycho-Pass

Your phone will now enter enforcer-decomposer mode. Please do not resist decomposition.

Now i need to add this to my plex

Come now, sir... you're better than Plex.

Join the Jellyfin side.

I have had a lifetime pass to Plex for over ten years. You still think Jellyfin is better? I've never looked at it.

Where are all the holo screens I was promised?

Never seen it. I thought it was a reference to the two people in pools that poop magic 8-ball readings from The Venture Bros.

Are we all going to have to remove our eyes now? Because I've got shit to do.

Sense offender!

Police departments have a long history of wasting shitloads of money on stuff that doesn't work, like voice stress analysis.

We can only hope

This is absolutely the best time to start a AI business.

Go ahead. Sell it to morons. Make that paper.

If they get even more excited, say blockchain and see if they bite. And if they do... you know you got yourself a nice payday.

It also kidnapped triplets and uses they’re precognitive capabilities to solve pre-crimes.

Do people in NYC think the NYPD is weirdly bloated? I don’t live there but, obviously, I get exposed to NYC’s local news whether I want it or not and the NYPD just seems unaccountable and way more involved in politics and graft than other cities’ police departments.

Absolutely unaccountable. Is that different where you are?

Checking in from a state in the south. Naw it is the same. Just fewer people snooping around asking questions. My area was big on Live PD and part of the downfall of the show.

It does seem different where I live (NOLA) but we have a whole different situation here w/r/t policing in terms of staffing and budgets and even demographics/culture. They’re also operating under a consent decree so apparently not that unaccountable.

What is baffling to me is that the people of NYC made a police captain their mayor.

Did we learn NOTHING from Minority Report????

Yes, they report the minorities.

"DID YOU HIDE THE MINORITY REPORT? I WANT THE TRUTH!"

"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"

I'll say this once and slowly... FUCK. THE. POLICE.

Official Notification - Protocol 5815384 - User: chemicalprophet

Dear User chemicalprophet,

This message serves as an official notification under Protocol 5815384. We hereby inform you that your calculated probability of engaging in criminal activities has experienced an increase of 14.56%, leading to a cumulative total of 45.32% to date.

Your current classification is as follows: CATEGORY - SLIGHTLY SUSPECT

Please be advised that no enforcement actions have been initiated at this time.

How about you say it twice?

Well with marjuana becoming legal in more and more places the police need a new way to generate probable cause on demand.

Suckers.

Wait till they start murdering innoc-- no wait they already do that.

I can easily undercut their price by predicting every young male in all the poor neighbourhoods.

That would be profiling. You see, what this does is it uses a ton of input data and AI to determine who they think is most likely to commit all sorts of minor crimes we've codified to disproportionately target poor and minority suspects.

If they actually found a way to predict the future, they should put it to use in the stock market, not sell the tech to cops. Way more money that way.

Honestly, detecting criminals in the stock market isn't a bad idea, the problem is they all are.

This is literally the plot of Watch Dogs.

It’s definitely going to turn out well.

“Sir, are these your shitposts?”
Uhhhh….
“Okay sir, these memes will lead to nuclear war, so you will need to become a particular individual in jail.”

Ooooh I really hope they scam them out of their money. This would be a perfect opportunity to hook the NYPD on crypto too. /s

This can only end in more institutionalized racism and other forms of oppression by the NYPD.

The problem is that the scam will hurt a lot of innocent people along the way. They won't produce any actually useful data, but they will false flag a whole bunch of accounts, most likely on the basis of racial profiling or supporting unions. Y'know, the usual stuff.

Are we at psycho pass levels yet?

Mmm let me see . Nope. Still white

...of course it's NYC. For as liberal NY is in general, the police are 1984 levels of nuts.

Even if you're not doing crime, they don't care. They will fly a drone over your backyard to make sure.

The moment you realise America has become the worlds Florida(man).

Ah, I see we're creating the Torment Nexus once again.

Please stop reifying things from cautionary tales.

I will continue to watch wheres981 swim through traffic as the NYC police fail to catch him for the 999999nth time lol.

Just abandon social media, I cannot think of a single positive thing that could possibly come close to outweighing the incredible harm it can cause us, collectively and individually

They can’t. We’ve already become a society that rewards narcissism.

Yet you’re still here…

Likely not for long. I’m sure I’ll be banned from this instance within 90 days lol

My point remains. You’re advising people to leave social media voluntarily while not doing so yourself.

I mean, that doesn’t make the point any less of a good one.

I tell my kids not to use drugs or drink all the time. Guess what I do?

"Wait, you cannot escape. NEVER RUN AWAY FROM THE TIME POLICE, YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE."