Are we Really Ready For This?
Scientists at the University of Chicago have developed a new algorithm that predicts crime with up to 90% accuracy by analyzing data and learning patterns.
What is the Movie Minority Report About?
Minority Report is a popular science fiction film focusing on a futuristic police force utilizing pre-cognition technology to visualize homicides before they happen.
In the movie the technology works by using three clairvoyant humans connected to a computer which releases two small wooden balls when one of them has a vision of the future. One ball with the name of the victim and the other with the name of the murderer.
Before the murder occurs, John Anderton, Tom Cruise’s character, then uses this information to track down the murderer and arrest them for “future murder”.
The Real Life Minority Report is Here!
Like the movie, A team of researchers claims to have created a real-world, AI-powered system that is able to predict crimes with an accuracy of 90%.
Unlike Minority Report, their system doesn’t require Precogs, it only needs past data to predict the future.
Data and social scientists from the University of Chicago have developed an advanced algorithm that works by learning patterns in time and geographic locations from public data on violent and property crimes.
According to the University of Chicago, the new model:
“isolates crime by looking at the time and spatial coordinates of discrete events and detecting patterns to predict future events. It divides the city into spatial tiles roughly 1,000 feet across and predicts crime within these areas instead of relying on traditional neighborhood or political boundaries, which are also subject to bias.”
Tested the Real Life Minority Report using Data from Seven Cities
The research team claims the accuracy of the new algorithm’s predictions was up to 90% and worked not only for Chicago, but also with data from seven other U.S. cities: Atlanta, Austin, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, and San Francisco.
“We created a digital twin of urban environments. If you feed it data from what happened in the past, it will tell you what’s going to happen in future,”
Ishanu Chattopadhyay, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at UChicago and senior author of the study.
The model was tested and validated using historical data from Chicago around two broad categories of crimes: violent crimes (homicides, assaults, and batteries) and property crimes (burglaries, thefts, and motor vehicle thefts), and, according to the recently-published study it could predict future crimes one week in advance with about 90% accuracy.
My Thoughts on the Real life Minority Report is Here!
To tell you the truth, this scares the crap out of me. Sure, it’d be great if people were saved from a future murder but who knows if the AI is correct?
What if it’s wrong? If you’ve watched Minority Report you’ve seen what they did to people the pre-cogs named as future murderers. They weren’t given a trial, just put to sleep. I know we won’t be but if we’re given a choice I’ll be choosing no to a real life Minority Report!
This is a question humans will have to answer in the future because the technology is nearly ready. The real question is, are we?
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