Should We Use Big Data To Punish Crimes Before They're Committed?

Even with this people will still cry racism.

^^^
What? Please, go back to the jesus forums and leave the science to the free thinkers. Honestly, that's what you took from this article? A way to justify your bigotry? Not content with keeping the exclusionary rhetoric contained within the walls of your delusion chambers (church) you insist on spreading your caveman brain paranoia on Popsci. Thanks but no thanks.

Wrap this article with the article of NSA.

www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

So yes, with the powers delegated to the NSA, since 911, computers are monitoring all conversations in the world real time and act on it!

The link above is of an old article, but also google more recent articles about NSA as well.

Big data, big abuse. Doesn't anyone see how slippery this slop is? We can't trust eye witnesses, now people want to trust a heuristic. Whatever happened to the Constitution and the right to face your accuser (who incidently is supposed to be a human being)? The current breed of politicians are hell bent on creating hell right here on earth, this is just another step toward that goal. They are suspending kids from school because they use a bagle as a toy gun, I suppose they should just lock them up for life because "bagle guns" mean you are definitely going to be a mass murderer, big blue said so.

I personally think federal laws should be passed to forbid the use of GPS or computer tracking from being used in trials. A computer should NEVER be allowed to testify.

@intrepidDesign

"free thinkers" Really? They aren't good at science (nor free thinking). "Free thinkers" are mostly just a bunch of Darwin thumping fundamentalists who don't really understand what religion is (because they claim not to be religious) and don't have a good grasp on how the scientific method works.

But now to comment on the article. No! If anything just send some police in to deter the crime. But if someone hasn't committed a crime don't punish them.

How can you punish someone that "might" do something in the future. Silly. So what's next, involuntary abortions because someones baby may grow up to be a criminal? Technology is good, but it will be our demise.

"Should We Use Big Data To Punish Crimes Before They're Committed?"

Punish crimes all you want. But you just can't punish people who are not yet criminals and if "you" did that to me, I'm pretty sure I would feel strongly inclined to commit that crime after I've already payed for it.

What a ridiculous article.

@davek01521: I believe the word you're looking for is BAGEL.

Punishment is a RESPONSE to misbehavior. If you know somebody is likely to commit a crime then you can use proactive measures. Get the person some counseling, remove their motivation for the crime, increase the targets security, and similar tactics.

But you'll never see that as the plot of a movie because it's boring to watch. Instead they'll write about the improbable response because it's far more interesting. If it were probable (and therefore common) it wouldn't be interesting.

You people should really read the fine print of the powers of the government after 911 and the powers of the NSA.

You will really be shocked!

You have access to the same data they do! Its all a cloud. Youre all sheep. Learn to code, learn about networks and systems. Stay on top of the technology. Learn about how much daya you create you mindless facebooking idiots. Please for the love of humanity, get intelligent! We have the same technology. We have better! So much that is hidden from your view. Do you know what you can do with a laptop these days? Technology is always in an infancy. Find its infancy and derive its potential. Then you you are on top. Do it before quantum cryptography takes over everything.

"Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon."

Pro's -
This will prevent countless amounts of violence, theft, cheats, waste, environment infractions, and provide a safety umbrella for the citizen whom have invested their whole lives in spending their accumulated funds to retire in a peaceful harmonious post (DEMOLITION MAN) movie reference) type of life style.

Con's-
The people whom HOLD!! the data can easily exempt themselves from the civil liberty persecution, & Will not be held accountable for a glitch in their quantitative algorithms. The police departments will no longer have to patrol only persecute. The judicial system will no longer matter. No longer will freedom of thought be a freedom. The constitution will be only a memory. No one will ever be able to think about creating a bank robbing movie without having some way to pay for the thought. Peer pressure will be a crime.
AND key what happens if a crime is committed against a family member and is never addressed but because you thought about retaliating you get the sentence?
(Where do you start to implement this, Wall Street, Banks, Military, elected officials or everyday civilians or all at once?) The whole system which defines laws will be restructured and will likely start from the bottom up and stop midway exempting those who are immuned due to fame, roles, idols, Godly figures (all possible but unknown) don’t want to pass judgments that for the data base to decide right?

Ethics- 4th amendment no longer, KEEP IN MIND The habits and algorithms already exist on what you buy, who your friends are, when you leave and take your phone with you etc.

Blessings - Some can say this would be a blessing from God! To think no one will ever have to worry about going outside or worry about getting into a wreck or fear for the safety of your life because it is truly safe, but will now only have to fear that ignorance of the law will impede peoples thought of new laws that restrict creative thinking and human nature and their inability to make decision that and will have to be aware of the changes daily as the laws are made.

These are just my thoughts and they don’t have a firm definitive understanding of how this will work other than a new way to possibly sell you a new phone, car, toy, partner or make you buy Carbonated product, but what I’ve stated what has already been addressed by many of the movies –(yes some movies are documentries) representing the idea being presented.

@starfire42: Well said.

Yes, this is a sensationalist title wrapping an interesting topic. Of course we should be cautious of the power that we give to algorithms, but think of the power that we give to individual witnesses and experts now? The article buried the lede. Humans use algorithms to make judgements about people all the time. They are combinations of previous experience, prejudices, weird perceptions that are opaque and nearly impossible to examine or question. An non-human algorithm that can be examined, made public, and tweaked is far more useful. The social sciences, gathering real data about occurrences and tendencies in society has been the only thing to ever combat our miserably biased internal algorithms. Sure, if we let due process fade into the night because we trust machines so much, then we're in trouble, but the problem isn't the technology, it's the users. We've already given ourselves the power to punish and even kill with far less evidence than these algorithms would give us. why not have another tool?

@davek01521

Only human brains using their outmoded, entirely statistic-less and biased equations would come up with a cause-effect relationship like your [bagel] gun scenario. The application of careful science is the only thing that can combat this idiocy. Yes, a politician, or other authority member could make claims based on bad science, and claim that the mighty algorithm supported their claims, but that happens now using any manner of justification. at least we'd be able to refute the analysis if real analysis had been done.

Suppose in typing you type bomb and president too often and in the rest of the email you type how you are opposed to these things. Yet the program dispatches the government police to your door, because it flags off the words bomb and president.

These links are relative to this article.

www.fortmilltimes.com/2013/03/06/2538346/national-security-agency-to-receive.html

www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/53534

http://www.itechpost.com/articles/6041/20130304/darpa-record-word-wiretap-surveillance-nsa-cia.htm

www.komonews.com/news/local/Questions-remain-about-controversial-surveillance-program-194444191.html

There are people at Google who are ALREADY abusing their power by looking into private emails and keeping track of idle hearsay.

They blacklist based only on idle speculation and rumor...not facts.

Google, in the wrong hands, is the greatest threat to personal liberty our nation has seen.

Unchecked, they can do a LOT of damage to a person's ability to get a job and make even an honest living.

Go-Ogle: We don't care if it is true, we just care that it can do you harm.

All a person has to do to blacklist someone is boost the
Go-Ogle page rank of the slander they want to appear FIRST in a Go-Ogle search of a victim's name.

Then, when an employer does a search of the victim's name, the slander pops up first...ensuring that the employer will see it before anything else.

Do a Go-Ogle search of Lindsey Stone's name, and you will see what I am talking about. She will never be able to escape her ONE thoughtless act as long as Go-Ogle continues to be indifferent to her fate.

Go-Ogle: The big advertising bucks come first...your puny reputation? Not even on our radar.

Those who propose ludicrous ideas such as this, are either ignorant or criminals. Using "average" info to draw a conclusion or prediction on a personal level is wrong to say the least. This approach is used by corrupt systems such as McCarthyism, Fascism, and dictatorship governments!

I would say that punishing people on the probability that they will commit a crime opens the legal system up to a lot of court cases against themselves. This sounds like it would be a great boom for lawyers.

More realistic would be sending a message to an individual that their behavior has made them conspicuous and that they need to explain themselves…like a traffic stop for erratic driving.

A couple of years ago I read about a camera system in (I think) England where the police officer watching the camera was able to communicate through an audio system to those observed that their behavior is unacceptable…”The cup you just had in your hand belongs in the trash can and not on the ground…yes…you in the red jacket…pick the paper cup up that you threw on the ground and put it in the trash can.”

POPSCI bans and blocks people from their words. Yes, I can see the USA government doing the same thing in an automated computer program. The government is just reflected what is common from society now.

This is disturbing, especially when one considers our current administration's overreaching and blatant disregard for the Constitution. These kinds of "laws" or methods only blossom in an environment of tyranny, such as the track U.S. is currently on, moving into a Socialist Democracy. It is exactly the same as trying to institute more predictive gun laws as is the current fashion. You cannot take away rights because of what might happen or you end up in a society that is anything but free.

Reasonable thought is the basis of prediction, in computers it is math based algorithms which are created by human beings. Instead of working within a human based system would this be better as an autonomous robotic system that bears the capability of stopping crime mid-action (Instead of the precrime possibilities). Furthermore in such a long term mechanical interface does it become necessary to develop a standard "Three Laws"? What then of the "Zeroth Law" possibility in a machine system that will physically outlast the human with which it interacts.

With the use of this machine and its continued enhancement after deployment is there any way to morally and socially avoid an evolution to an Asimovic world?

The Liberals do this each time they blame the 99.9999% population that doesn't hurt anyone with their privately held firearms by trying to pass restrictive firearms laws. This is nothing new.

How thrilling, thought crime is just around the corner. I also love the irony that those who scream the loudest that Obama and his socialist friends are taking away their freedom are the same ones that are screaming the loudest to bring on the punishments for Thought Crime and the Thought Police to make them safer. These people deserve neither freedom nor security.

I also hear the chants of 'Witch, Witch, burn her' because an old spinster lady had a cat. How do you know if this lady is a witch, well we can just tell, burn her. If she comes out looking like burnt meat, then she was a witch, if she comes out unscathed, she is a witch, and we'll then hang her.

Crimes need to be physically committed in order for punishment to be necessary. We don't need a pre-crime division of the police, we don't need the Thought Police. Big data has no role in law enforcement.

I guess it pretty much goes hand in hand with O's Drone Program. If the data center says that an American sitting in a restaurant eating a hamburger is a possible terrorist, then one of O's drones will wipe him out - and everyone else in the vicinity including that restaurant's business. Then, as in "Equilibrium," every American keeps taking drugs, so they remain as emotionless and inhuman as possible about the whole idea of living in a berserk, homicidal police state.

Auroria posted the following 03/07/13 at 8:08 am:

"POPSCI bans and blocks people from their words. Yes, I can see the USA government doing the same thing in an automated computer program. The government is just reflected what is common from society now."

When you provide the forum and the bandwidth, Auroria, you will do the same.

In most of the US, individuals are routinely penalized before being convicted of any crime. Take a look at how governments use asset forfeiture to seize a person's private property before that person has been convicted of any crime. This essentially means a person bears the burden of proving their innocence in order to recover their property from the government.

And good luck with that.

get with the program popsci
where's the thumbs up/down icon?

This article has all the credibility of the movie. Zip. Nada. None. It's total drivel.

Note to PopSci: This is the kind of nonsense writing that caused me to take a pass on renewing my subscription to the print mag and that will keep me from subscribing to the digital edition. I won't pay to read this tripe. It's bad enough when it's free.

I once knew a Yugoslav, who thought America was brimming with criminals, and that he might get jumped at any minute. He was boasting of the safety of his streets at home, and I explained our principle of innocent until proven guilty, which risks releasing a guilty person, rather than to imprison an innocent one.

He replied that he would be willing to go to prison for something he didn't do, rather than to know the country was unsafe because criminals were set free if they could not be proven guilty.

He may have believed that at the moment, but would certainly change his mind if it would really happen.

Sounds great .. start with politicians!! Really if it can be done, why not just prevent the crime before it happens?

A crime must be committed before a law is broken. There is no such thing as crime prevention. This is a simple kind of fascist idea isn't it? Punishment may not be implemented before there is a crime or itself becomes the crime. What a DUMB IDEA....

This will be the end of small businesses, individual patents, entrepreneurship, open markets and the opportunity for a person to create a unique product.
The conglomerates will own the data before a person could even begin to get it to market.

Open markets are now CLOSED.

How about starting with ALL/past(living) current politicians,including the president,,,and I mean local,villages,towns,cities,counties,states,national.Include jury members,court justices(judges),include members of the U.S.supreme court,include company presidents,CEOs board members,stock holders,law enforcement(all brances)Everyone,No one to be exempted,including Me..Then who would be left to judge who has the honorability/dishonorability to make final decisions in the future of anything for the good /best for the U.S.A.

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like Anne replied I'm dazzled that a mom can make $5631 in four weeks on the computer. have you read this webpage http://www.jump14.com

have you seen the TV show on CBS, Person Of Interest?
"You are being watched. The government has a secret system: a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find you".

in all I would not want a "machine" like this watching us everywhere. It would be a serious privacy concern and whoever controlled it would control everything and everyone. No privacy... ANYWHERE.

So then is it that we have a problem with Conspiracy to Commit, or that it might be a computer, like Watson, that could logically reason that something about someone offering to sell another human on Craig's List to a third party after kidnapping her might stick out as remarkable; and alert a human to it? I used the recent twisted New York episode because that becomes a potentially real scenario in this context. The computer accuses NOTHING. It records data. Humans accuse humans with evidence from supposedly reliable sources, yet human evidence reliability is devastatingly poor. The 'white collar' type of scumbag hides their actions behind the actions of others, all of whom have reliable denyability. Computers can follow these pukes far easier than the so-called Justice Department has been able to.

More of the same from our friendly USA gov.:

news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57575085-83/u.s-government-to-fight-for-warrantless-gps-tracking/

More of the same attitude, from our friendly(NOT) US governement.:

news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57575085-83/u.s-government-to-fight-for-warrantless-gps-tracking/

DUMB. This takes away my liberty. But if capitol crimes were in the process of being committed then yes.