COMPUTER COPS: Inside the big business of selling AI to the police
COMPUTER COPS: Inside the big business of selling AI to the police From data gathering to decision making, there’s a gold mine in police funding. Police...
Key points
- COMPUTER COPS: Inside the big business of selling AI to the police From data gathering to decision making, there’s a gold mine in police funding.
- Police departments have used technology for decades to analyze data and, in theory, make more informed decisions in the field.
- “All the systems of record [used by police departments] are essentially antiquated,” he told me.
- “We don’t use the ‘p word’ at all, because it failed.” ForceMetrics offers police departments a platform called Velocity, which “uses AI to turn overwhelming amounts of public safety data into clear, actionable insights,” according to the company’s website.
What happened
COMPUTER COPS: Inside the big business of selling AI to the police From data gathering to decision making, there’s a gold mine in police funding. Police departments have used technology for decades to analyze data and, in theory, make more informed decisions in the field. “All the systems of record [used by police departments] are essentially antiquated,” he told me. “We don’t use the ‘p word’ at all, because it failed.” ForceMetrics offers police departments a platform called Velocity, which “uses AI to turn overwhelming amounts of public safety data into clear, actionable insights,” according to the company’s website. First adopted by the New York City Police Department over 20 years ago, RTCCs are designed to aggregate police data coming in from multiple streams — like 911 dispatch, CCTV cameras, and license-plate scanners — to provide officers with a summary of what to expect when they arrive on a scene. “The reality is that police departments had already been using predictive algorithms, which companies touted as data-driven, for years before calls to defund the police revved up in 2020,” she told me.