Cops Now Using AI To Do Their Job
There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it, we’re now living in the age of AI. While everyone is terrified of artificial intelligence taking over their jobs, there’s one job computers are taking over that they definitely shouldn’t be handling. Thanks to Axon, the public safety contractor that manufactures police equipment, cops are now using AI to write police reports.
AI Tech Is Writing Police Reports
Axon Enterprise Inc. is a technology company based in Scottsdale, Arizona that focuses on creating products for the military and law enforcement. They’re the company that popularized the Taser and now they’ve come up with an AI to automate police reports.
The technology is called Draft One. A press release for the company revealed that Draft One is a “revolutionary new software product that drafts high-quality police report narratives in seconds.” Using the large language model GPT-4, the AI allegedly writes police reports by auto-transcribing audio recorded on the police body cameras (which are also distributed by Axon).
Supposed To Save Time
The pitch for using AI to write up police reports frames the tech as a way for police to spend more time in their communities, as their time will be freed from spending hours marking up mountains of paperwork. According to the company, the tech is a way to combat the understaffed police departments across the United States.
On paper, AI technology writing police reports makes sense. With understaffed police stations, officers are working overtime and still the response times to service calls are slow. Not only is this shortage causing burnout for the officers on duty and spending taxpayer money, but it’s also dangerous and could contribute to higher crime rates.
By stepping into the new age and using AI tech to draft the police reports, officers can save time, which can be used to better protect and serve their communities.
The Downfall
But that’s just on paper. And, as well-intentioned as the new tech might be framed in the press release, AI has been out long enough for us all to understand there are still quite a few kinks we need to work out. Critics have been quick to point out that we might not be ready for AI to do something as important as writing police reports yet.
Could Become A Nightmare
Dave Maass, the surveillance technologies investigations director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, described the new product as “kind of a nightmare.” Maass highlighted that many law enforcement officers lack training in AI usage, which may hinder their ability to navigate its shortcomings, even when it comes to tasks like writing police reports.
One big problem with AI is its tendency to “hallucinate,” aka, make stuff up without prompting. Not only could this cause problems for the public, but it also holds police less accountable. It’s entirely possible that cops could use the new AI technology as a scapegoat if something false appeared in a police report written by Draft One.
Safeguards In Place
Axon claims there is a “range of critical safeguards” in the AI tech, including the requirement for a human to review the police reports written by Draft One. But to have faith that these safeguards would be followed requires the public to have faith that police would do their jobs correctly every time—something many in the public find hard to believe.
At any rate, AI writing police reports may be an unavoidable part of the future. Draft One is currently in trials with law enforcement agencies and is reportedly saving cops about an hour of work per day.
Source: Forbes
