Precognition software used to predict which prisoners will murder
Minority Report style systems might seem creepy, but they’re no more flawed than human parole officers
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/11/precognition_software_used_to_predict_which_prisoners_will_murder/
Kinda interesting, but I agree with the author that the alternative (letting parole officers guess) is worse:
However, in this instance directing concerns at the technology itself is misplaced. This would assume that parole officers don’t also base their decisions on which parolees remain “criminal risks” on limited, flawed and highly problematic variables, and also punish people accordingly. As the software’s creator told Wired, the algorithms simply replace the ad hoc decision making done by parole officers. As long as parole boards employing the software don’t view it as some perfect predictor of criminal futures, the precognition technology is no more troubling than the vagaries of human decision making in our prison systems.
Of course, the ACLU and whatnot will surely get this killed soon; better to have a much worse system that is incapable of universal upgrades in place (parole officers) than an indendent algorithm that can be upgraded with better information. One of the reasons I still remain a bit skeptical that we will be able to turn to computer driven cars anytime soon.
