The United Kingdom develops an algorithmic tool for predicting possible killers

The British government is working on “Murder forecast»It was found to identify people who are more likely to become killers, the guardian reported this week.

The project, the originally called the “Project for Predicting Murders”, but has since been renamed “Data on the exchange to improve risk assessment”, is responsible for the Ministry of Justice of Great Britain and uses algorithms and personal data, including testing services to make its calculations.

The government said that at present the project is intended only for research purposes and “will help us better understand the risk that people on a probationary period are committing serious acts of violence.”

The work began under the previous conservative administration and continues under the leadership of the Labor Government, which took this position last year.

A group of civil law activists Statewatch discovered the existence of a project at the request of freedom of information.

Sofia Lailell, a Statewatch researcher, said: “An attempt by the Ministry of Justice to build this system for predicting murder is the last frightening and anti -utopic example of the government’s intentions to develop the so -called crime systems.”

He said that the tool “strengthen and enhance the structural discrimination that supports the criminal legal system”, adds: “Over and over again, the investigation shows that algorithmic systems to“ predict ”the crime are inherently defective. However, the government promotes artificial intelligence systems that will sell people as criminals before they do something. ”

Liall asked the government to “immediately stop the development of this tool for predicting the murder.”

The concept of using algorithms for predicting possible killers occupies an outstanding place in the novel by Philip K. Dick in 1956. Minority reportLater he adapted to the successful film of 2002 with the participation of Tom Cruise in the title role. In this fictitious universe, the so -called “do -“ mutants -mutants (“Precogs”) are used to arrest people before they commit murders, which is an early study of the forecasting police. Nevertheless, in this case, the story uses a preliminary performance instead of traditional algorithms.

Returning to the real world, it is known that the forecasting police is used by several police departments in the United States, although their adoption is faced with growing inspections and regulatory problems.