--- title: "Minority Report-Style Crime-Predicting AI Predictably Sucks At Its Job" description: "The UK government has been funneling millions of dollars into a gun and knife crime prediction tool that uses artificial intelligence. Turns out it sucks." date: "2020-08-10" modified: "2020-08-10" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/crime-prediction-ai-sucks-minority-report" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "ai bias" - "artificial intelligence" - "the digest" --- # Minority Report-Style Crime-Predicting AI Predictably Sucks At Its Job ![The UK government has been funneling millions of dollars into a gun and knife crime prediction tool that uses artificial intelligence. Turns out it sucks.]() *\Image: Image via Pxfuel\* ## Saw It Coming The UK government has been funneling millions of dollars into a prediction tool for violent crime that uses artificial intelligence. Now, officials are finally ready to admit that it has one big flaw: It's completely unusable. Also: Predictably (ironically), riddled with ethical problems, as [*Wired* reports](). Police have already stopped developing the system called "Most Serious Violence" (MSV), part of the UK's National Data Analytics Solution (NDAS) project, and luckily was never actually put to use — yet plenty of questions about the system remain. The tool worked by assigning people scores based on how likely they were to commit a gun or knife crime within the next two years. Two databases from two different UK police departments were used to train the system, including crime and custody records. ## Fatal Flaws Fortunately, the system never got off the ground. The system was full of flaws according to official documents obtained by *Wired*. "A coding error was found in the definition of the training data set which has rendered the current problem statement of MSV unviable," a March briefing read. "It has proven unfeasible with data currently available to identify a point of intervention before a person commits their first MSV offense with a gun or knife with any degree of precision." Instead of predictability scores in the high 70s, as was found in early tests, the system was only able to predict gun or knife violence less than 20 percent of the time. ## Biases Luckily, police forces have decided to discontinue the development of the system. Yet, as experts tell *Wired*, even with a 100 percent accuracy, plenty of biases would remain in similar systems in the future, especially with regards to age and ethnicity. **READ MORE:** [A British AI Tool to Predict Violent Crime Is Too Flawed to Use]() \[*Wired*\] **More on AI:** *[Scientists Are Using an “AI Bird Watcher” to Solve a Solar Farm Bird Massacre Mystery]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()