Computer predicts crimes, sends cops ahead of time.

  Quote

 

Officers at a location flagged by a computer program as a place where car burglaries were especially likely put a woman in custody.

 

...The presence of the police officers in the garage that Friday afternoon in July was anything but ordinary: They were directed to the parking structure by a computer program that had predicted that car burglaries were especially likely there that day.

 

Santa Cruz’s method is more sophisticated than most. Based on models for predicting aftershocks from earthquakes, it generates projections about which areas and windows of time are at highest risk for future crimes by analyzing and detecting patterns in years of past crime data. The projections are recalibrated daily, as new crimes occur and updated data is fed into the program.

 

On the day the women were arrested, for example, the program identified the approximately one-square-block area where the parking garage is situated as one of the highest-risk locations for car burglaries.

 

Law enforcement agencies, Mr. Dickson noted, have “great warehouses of data” that can be used to feed predictive programs. And in the end, he said, “it’s cheaper to prevent a crime than to solve a crime, and that’s where I think the promise lies.”

http://www.nytimes.c...olice.html?_r=2

Innocent til proven guilty, huh.

Well, all the people it predicts that will commit crimes are still all innocent of any wrongdoing since the crime has yet to happen...

This is cool. I hate myself slightly but it is.

WHERES MY MINORITY REPORT?

So what, they hooked up abused children's brains to the computer or what?

  On 8/16/2011 at 11:10 PM, Rambo said:

This is cool. I hate myself slightly but it is.

yep. It's not like the women were simply charged for being in the area at the time either, they were found suspiciously looking into cars and one of them had warrents and the other one was carrying meth

I am sorry but fuck this.

  On 8/16/2011 at 11:07 PM, Braintree said:

Innocent til proven guilty, huh.

 

Well, all the people it predicts that will commit crimes are still all innocent of any wrongdoing since the crime has yet to happen...

it's not actually minority report...i don't think it predicts crimes that people are going to commit, just helps deploy officers in more crime worn areas...

saying the women were arrested on the report just makes you want to read it, i don't think it has relevance to the computer...she must've done something wrong.

could have been much more idm if they used an unmanned drone with non-lethal weapons (like those microwave guns for example) instead of real cops to intercept the criminals.

  On 8/16/2011 at 11:21 PM, Swerm said:

  On 8/16/2011 at 11:07 PM, Braintree said:

Innocent til proven guilty, huh.

 

Well, all the people it predicts that will commit crimes are still all innocent of any wrongdoing since the crime has yet to happen...

 

it's not actually minority report...i don't think it predicts crimes that people are going to commit, just helps deploy officers in more crime worn areas...

 

saying the women were arrested on the report just makes you want to read it, i don't think it has relevance to the computer...she must've done something wrong.

....basically what i was going to say. It will probably be excellent for making better use of resources

There was an interesting bit on the third episode (which was about prediction) of the BBC 2 programme The Code where maths was used to create a heat map of where a crook might live based on the location of his crimes. http://www.kevinhous...he-code-part-3/

so basically I'm starting a computer program to tell me, based on historical crimes rates, when and where crimes will be least anticipated.

easy.

thug life 2.0.

  On 8/17/2011 at 1:01 AM, Franklin said:

so basically I'm starting a computer program to tell me, based on historical crimes rates, when and where crimes will be least anticipated.

 

easy.

 

thug life 2.0.

Exactly - combined with people announcing their travel plans on facebook/twitter, or using that program where you check into a place "Kevin Bacon just checked into Margaritaville", if you know Kevin Bacon's house and it's located in a low-crime area (historically speaking), bam.

WATTM have we just admitted an interest in organized crime if it's done in an IDM way?... Should we start a WATMM mafia?

Edit: 'Cause I am SO down to rob Kevin Bacon's house :sup:

You know, ever since I read this article

http://www.nybooks.c...iew+of+Books%29

I have been thinking that we are going to have Minority Report tech sooner than we think. Just to play evil guy for a second, if I worked at the CIA I would totally ask Google for something MR-like to detect guys like Anders Behring Breivik. This guy wrote I a 1500+ manifesto filled with I guess all kinds of 'suspicious' activity. I mean, what if he wrote it on Google Docs, or sent it via Gmail, or kept asking search the 'wrong questions'?

  On 8/17/2011 at 5:13 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 8/17/2011 at 1:01 AM, Franklin said:

so basically I'm starting a computer program to tell me, based on historical crimes rates, when and where crimes will be least anticipated.

 

easy.

 

thug life 2.0.

 

Exactly - combined with people announcing their travel plans on facebook/twitter, or using that program where you check into a place "Kevin Bacon just checked into Margaritaville", if you know Kevin Bacon's house and it's located in a low-crime area (historically speaking), bam.

That location bullshit pisses me off, for that exact reason. Granted, I know that only people I know (or allow? my settings are all super private) could see that information if I used it (supposedly), but... why the hell would anyone want to announce to the world where they are and when they're there? What the hell does it matter if I use Facebook on the wifi at a starbucks or my house or my friend's house?

Sounds like a bit of hyperbolic media. The police are basically using an algorithm to distribute their 'resources' in an optimal way in a given area. This isn't any more "minority report" than idle elevators trying to predict which level it needs to be next.

  On 8/17/2011 at 8:26 AM, Sprigg said:

  On 8/17/2011 at 5:13 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 8/17/2011 at 1:01 AM, Franklin said:

so basically I'm starting a computer program to tell me, based on historical crimes rates, when and where crimes will be least anticipated.

 

easy.

 

thug life 2.0.

 

Exactly - combined with people announcing their travel plans on facebook/twitter, or using that program where you check into a place "Kevin Bacon just checked into Margaritaville", if you know Kevin Bacon's house and it's located in a low-crime area (historically speaking), bam.

 

That location bullshit pisses me off, for that exact reason. Granted, I know that only people I know (or allow? my settings are all super private) could see that information if I used it (supposedly), but... why the hell would anyone want to announce to the world where they are and when they're there? What the hell does it matter if I use Facebook on the wifi at a starbucks or my house or my friend's house?

Ostensibly it's so people in the area can come and say hi, although in actuality I think people just do it to show off that they have (or think they have) interesting lives

  On 8/17/2011 at 9:40 AM, goDel said:

idle elevators trying to predict which level it needs to be next

You gotta admit THAT'S pretty Minority Report right there

  On 8/16/2011 at 11:19 PM, Bubba69 said:

  On 8/16/2011 at 11:10 PM, Rambo said:

This is cool. I hate myself slightly but it is.

 

yep. It's not like the women were simply charged for being in the area at the time either, they were found suspiciously looking into cars and one of them had warrents and the other one was carrying meth

The stupid thing about all this, is that you already have a far more advanced machine that can do this sort of predictive modelling.

IT's CALLED A COP.

A cop knows the parking garages that meth addicts target, cause him and his buddies are there doing it every fucking day.

This stuff is a stupid waste of money that will probably be used as an excuse to contract the police force. Firing good, hardworking police in favour of a smaller force that apparently knows where the crimes will happen. The problem with this is that, eventually with the removal of regular policing stats from the modelling inputs. The predictive data will start a feedback loop. As the remaining cops get sent back to the same 'high crime' areas (read the few places the models has settled on) time and again. You'll lose all that good data that comes from having bodies on the ground and driving around.

  On 8/17/2011 at 9:40 AM, goDel said:

Sounds like a bit of hyperbolic media. The police are basically using an algorithm to distribute their 'resources' in an optimal way in a given area.

I agree with this, but you can see how it's usefulness could be overblown in an attempt to salve the minds of politicians hoping to justify budget their cuts.

  On 8/17/2011 at 1:26 PM, Terpentintollwut said:

  On 8/17/2011 at 9:40 AM, goDel said:

idle elevators trying to predict which level it needs to be next

 

You gotta admit THAT'S pretty Minority Report right there

yeah i like this.

i've developed an app to predict where the next english riot will take place

here

  On 8/17/2011 at 1:41 PM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

maybe people shouldn't be parking their cars in high-risk zones. who's to blame in this situation?

we should be looking at why these people are at the point where they are breaking into cars and whatnot. they more likely need our help than a cell in a jail.

How are people to know that they are parking their car in a high-risk area?

Now, if there was only a program to predict when someone was going to act like a dumbass on messageboards...