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The rise of artificial intelligence has spawned a heated and divisive discourse concerning the potential applications of the technology, and Argentina has now entered the fray after announcing its plans to harness A.I. in the hopes of predicting crimes before they unfold in real life.
Artificial intelligence is just the latest in a long line of potentially revolutionary developments with tremendous upside that are still a major cause for concern thanks to the moral and ethical issues that complicate their adoption.
We’ve already been treated to plenty of examples highlighting the potential downsides of A.I. thanks to deepfakes with an ability to allow misinformation to propagate, artists sounding the alarm about a dearth of creativity stemming from glorified plagiarism, and other people who have seen their livelihoods threatened by corporations doing everything in their power to cut labor costs.
Now, we have another reason to be slightly concerned courtesy of Argentina thanks to some officials in the country who apparently missed the message of basically every movie and television show that revolves around attempting to predict crimes before they happen.
According to The Guardian, Argentinian president Javier Milei recently announced the creation of the Artificial Intelligence Applied to Security Unit, a new law enforcement branch that aims to harness “machine-learning algorithms to analyze historical crime data to predict future crimes” in order to “detect potential threats, identify movements of criminal groups or anticipate disturbances.”
Using data to formulate an approach to policing isn’t exactly a new development (the NYPD created a similar system in the form of CompStat 30 years ago). However, critics are understandably concerned about the unit’s approach to training the A.I. system in regard to privacy and surveillance in addition to the underlying motives of Milei, a far-right populist with libertarian tendencies.
It’s hard to talk about A.I. being used to predict the future without drawing comparisons to Minority Report. While that film technically revolved around humans with psychic abilities who could predict the future as opposed to A.I., it did highlight the potential downsides of attempting to preempt criminal acts (the television series Person of Interest—which explored the morality of this approach—is probably a more accurate parallel).
There’s always a chance Argentina avoids the pitfalls highlighted in entertainment vehicles revolving around A.I. solutions to crime fighting, but I’d be lying if I said I was optimistic about that being the case when everything is said and done.