Statewatch | UK: Ministry of Justice secretly developing ‘murder prediction’ system
www.statewatch.org
The Ministry of Justice is developing a system that aims to ‘predict’ who will commit murder, as part of a “data science” project using sensitive personal data on hundreds of thousands of people.

The Ministry of Justice is developing a system that aims to ‘predict’ who will commit murder, as part of a “data science” project using sensitive personal data on hundreds of thousands of people.

  • barneypiccolo@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    Why are they rebooting “Minority Report?” The Tom Cruise version was excellent, we don’t need a new one.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
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    6 days ago

    So what’s the plan after that? You can’t arrest people until after they commit the crime. Otherwise it gets confusing.

    The UK isn’t the US, the government can’t just do whatever it wants and get away with it.

    • febra@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 days ago

      Stop falling for the liberal trap that laws and bureaucracy will somehow magically save you from fascism. It won’t. This is just the start. They’re slowly warming you all up to it until it’s going to be too late. There’s no such thing as “This can’t happen here!”. It definitely can, and it definitely will if you don’t organise and stop it.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        0·
        6 days ago

        I’ve read through the entire article and I can’t find anywhere where it says that they will actually be acting in the data. It also says in the article that this project was started by the conservatives not labour so again I don’t necessarily think there’s cause for concern right now. Also the fact the government even responded to the freedom of information request seems to suggest that it isn’t actually a secret project.

        • Nalivai@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 days ago

          Shit like that needs to be stopped while it’s just someone’s wild wet dreams. When it will become solid plans with budget and deadlines, it will already be too late

    • noughtnaut@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      6 days ago

      It would be hilarious to see random civilians being casually followed by a policeman (policeperson?), overtly and cheerfully “nah mate, you haven’t done a thing. I’m just here to watch. For now. Carry on.”

      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        0·
        6 days ago

        Aha the “it might happen” argument, used to justify pretty much any amount of pearl clutching that one feels is necessary.

        I’m not saying it’s impossible but just saying it might happen and then providing no actual evidence as to why that might happen doesn’t really constitute an argument. We might have super intelligent AI by next month, but we probably won’t so I’m not going to worry about it.

  • _lilith@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    7 days ago

    hey lets feed the guessing machine crime data generated from policing by a bunch of racist ass cops. No way will the resulting “predictions” be racist

    • TerHu@lemm.eeEnglish
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      6 days ago

      at first i thought your suggestion was to feed the machine racist cops to find them and got all hyped ):

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    7 days ago

    Hey, remember when pre-musk twitter had to turn off their extremism automod for republican politicians because they were constantly spewing the same patterns of extremist content that actual ISIS-supporting accounts were?

    Pepperidge Farm remembers.

  • WanderingThoughts@europe.pubEnglish
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    7 days ago

    And it will say people of lower economic classes and foreign origin are the biggest risk. Will action be taken to help these people? Nah. This is just going to be a technological excuse for some good ol’ repression.

  • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    7 days ago

    Reminder to watch Minority Report again… I don’t even remember whether that movie was any good or not

  • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    7 days ago

    Be ready to go to jail for shit you never did, and then be forced to watch the thing you never did for your entire sentence. What do you think you’ll do when you are released?

        • gedhrel@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          7 days ago

          That’s actually the idea. It’s not general precrime, it’s a decision support tool for predicting recidivism when deciding parole cases.

          That doesn’t mean it’s not on decidedly shonky ground statistically speaking.

  • gedhrel@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    7 days ago

    570 recorded homicides between March 2023 and 2024.

    Data on “hundreds of thousands” of people can’t provide the distinguishing markers to even have a stab at this.

    It can reliably predict when people are black, though.