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To give an example how this kind of database and software can be used, based on their example: - Someone "Alex" is convicted, a data point is created - "X" has

To give an example how this kind of database and software can be used, based on their example: - Someone "Alex" is convicted, a data point is created - "X" has a scar on their left leg and a tattoo on their right ankle of a skull, this is registered in their data, along with any other info (height, probable weight, ethnicity, age, what they look like etc.) Later, a citizen reports a crime, doesn't really see the person but noticed the start of a tattoo on the perp's right ankle under a sock. This info, along with vague height info, etc. could then be used to define Alex as a suspect. Powerful, data comprehension. Potentially controversial part: not everyone has a data point, and since the article states it, there are probably more data points on black and brown communities. So data comprehension and links found and going to be found in this already-existing pool. A possible solution to this is creating data points for everyone, but that has its own controversies (whether it's a government or a private entity). To play Devil's advocate, Palantir gets a lot of flack for licensing their software to governmental institutions, e.g. ICE, the US army, and for being affiliated to Peter Thiel (see the other comment). Unlike Thiel, Alex Karp (Palantir CEO) is left leaning. Palantir has worked with numerous administrations (Bush, Obama). Their view is that they don't see or pick any sides, but the morality of that is up for everyone to decide, I believe if you don't pick a side, one is often picked for you.

_petronius 6y ago
I don't think the devil needs any more advocates, tbh, and I kind of wish people would stop refusing to take responsibility for the arguments they put forth by hedging in that way. > Powerful, data comprehension Correlation, maybe -- not the same as comprehension. > A possible solution to this is creating data points for everyone, but that has its own controversies Or you know, creating fewer data points -- maybe even none -- in general. Why is this something that needs to be software-driven? Why increase automation? What is the evidence that policing and criminal investigation is more effective (and by what standards!) when using Palantir's tech? I question the assumption that increased automation and digitization of every process is necessarily an improvement, or useful, and I feel like this line of argument takes that as an assumption. > Their view is that they don't see or pick any sides, but the morality of that is up for everyone to decide, I believe if you don't pick a side, one is often picked for you. "Not seeing sides", or not picking them, is taking a position though. Declaring neutrality doesn't remove the concrete effect of your actions, or change the fact of your material support for a given model of policing or government. As Can Duruk argues convincingly in his latest newsletter[1] one of the best examples of that is low voter turnout in US elections: that benefits one side pretty clearly, so to declare you won't take sides and won't vote is a practical and real show of support for the status quo (to take just one example). [1]: https://themargins.substack.com/p/all-politics-is-bad-says-coinbase https://themargins.substack.com/p/all-politics-is-bad-says-c...
- roenxi 6y ago
  > Correlation, maybe -- not the same as comprehension. The problem with this argument is that, although it is right (I agree!) it will not carry the debate. _The_ problem here is that there is a large group of political moderates who trust authority. Arguing that the authorities will misinterpret and/or abuse statistical evidence will not sway their opinions. It is difficult to convince that group to limit the power of government. The best argument I came up with was an appeal to a fundamental right to privacy; but that has pretty much all but evaporated in today's world. Privacy is too expensive and might be politically untenable. That argument started to collapse in the hysteria after 9/11 2001.
  - _petronius 6y ago
    How much power the government has is certainly one line of argument. I'm more interested in how we hold the government accountable for the exercise of the power it has. In general, I don't think limiting the power or size of the government is the solution, although I'm all in favour of shrinking certain parts of it in very specific ways: You can make your prison management arm smaller by privatising jails and prisons, but you haven't really fixed anything if you do that; on the other hand, I would be delighted to see defence and policing budgets the world over diverted into infrastructure, schools, and housing, and there are many very good examples of how those can be managed well by both central or local government. If the government is unaccountable, then anyway it's useless to talk about its size, it can simply accrue more power. I think America is especially (although not uniquely) feeling the pain of lack of accountability at the moment, not least because the electorate as a whole is increasingly misrepresented by the outcome of elections, there is no culture of building political consensus, and as a result every vote becomes a zero-sum contest. It does not have to be like this.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  It doesn't matter if it is more effective, but it is cheaper than employing people connecting dots. Also the generation currently in politics would feel left behind if they didn't employ such pattern matching systems, even if there is no evidence of crime reduction. It is part of the quantification of everything. You don't just get a number, you get several thousands and the judgement on you is calculated on the fly. I think people responsible here are still the ones that decided to buy it. They are responsible the market exists. Also not a mystery since those people are mostly evaluated by how many people they put behind bars.
jlokier 6y ago
> A possible solution to this is creating data points for everyone A better solution is to use better statistics. If you think you need to collect redundant extra data about innocents just to improve inferences using the data you have, you're doing statistics wrong. This has come up with DNA databases too. Prosecutor's Fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/news/views/the-prosecutors-fallacy https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/news/views/the-prosecutors-fallacy "The Prosecutor’s Fallacy is most often associated with miscarriages of justice. It’s when the probability of innocence given the evidence is wrongly assumed to equal an infinitesimally small probability that that evidence would occur if the defendant was innocent. Consequently, highly improbable innocent explanations have led to the assumption of guilt,"
- lxnn 6y ago
  It's essentially when information that was used to identify the suspect is presented as confirmation of their guilt. > The witness described a tall, white, black-haired man with a tattoo on his right ankle. Only .001% of the population match this description, so there is only a .001% chance that the suspect is innocent. Of course, this ignores the fact that they compared the description against a database of one million people, among whom you would expect to find 10 coincidental matches. For the same reason more data is required to select a model than to validate a model in machine learning.
jojobas 6y ago
There is no problem that the information on past offenders is searchable. There is a bit of a problem that information on non-offenders is sucked in as well, but even that is moderately ok as long as anyone can see what the system has on them (currently it's not the case), who accessed it and why.
- luckylion 6y ago
  So if you're a criminal, just regularly check whether your data has been accessed and why?
  - jojobas 6y ago
    Criminals have right to due process too. Perhaps the access data should be released with a delay to protect current investigations, or sealed altogether for a very good reason with appropriate authority.

_petronius 6y ago

I don't think the devil needs any more advocates, tbh, and I kind of wish people would stop refusing to take responsibility for the arguments they put forth by hedging in that way. > Powerful, data comprehension Correlation, maybe -- not the same as comprehension. > A possible solution to this is creating data points for everyone, but that has its own controversies Or you know, creating fewer data points -- maybe even none -- in general. Why is this something that needs to be software-driven? Why increase automation? What is the evidence that policing and criminal investigation is more effective (and by what standards!) when using Palantir's tech? I question the assumption that increased automation and digitization of every process is necessarily an improvement, or useful, and I feel like this line of argument takes that as an assumption. > Their view is that they don't see or pick any sides, but the morality of that is up for everyone to decide, I believe if you don't pick a side, one is often picked for you. "Not seeing sides", or not picking them, is taking a position though. Declaring neutrality doesn't remove the concrete effect of your actions, or change the fact of your material support for a given model of policing or government. As Can Duruk argues convincingly in his latest newsletter[1] one of the best examples of that is low voter turnout in US elections: that benefits one side pretty clearly, so to declare you won't take sides and won't vote is a practical and real show of support for the status quo (to take just one example). [1]: https://themargins.substack.com/p/all-politics-is-bad-says-coinbase https://themargins.substack.com/p/all-politics-is-bad-says-c...

roenxi 6y ago
> Correlation, maybe -- not the same as comprehension. The problem with this argument is that, although it is right (I agree!) it will not carry the debate. _The_ problem here is that there is a large group of political moderates who trust authority. Arguing that the authorities will misinterpret and/or abuse statistical evidence will not sway their opinions. It is difficult to convince that group to limit the power of government. The best argument I came up with was an appeal to a fundamental right to privacy; but that has pretty much all but evaporated in today's world. Privacy is too expensive and might be politically untenable. That argument started to collapse in the hysteria after 9/11 2001.
- _petronius 6y ago
  How much power the government has is certainly one line of argument. I'm more interested in how we hold the government accountable for the exercise of the power it has. In general, I don't think limiting the power or size of the government is the solution, although I'm all in favour of shrinking certain parts of it in very specific ways: You can make your prison management arm smaller by privatising jails and prisons, but you haven't really fixed anything if you do that; on the other hand, I would be delighted to see defence and policing budgets the world over diverted into infrastructure, schools, and housing, and there are many very good examples of how those can be managed well by both central or local government. If the government is unaccountable, then anyway it's useless to talk about its size, it can simply accrue more power. I think America is especially (although not uniquely) feeling the pain of lack of accountability at the moment, not least because the electorate as a whole is increasingly misrepresented by the outcome of elections, there is no culture of building political consensus, and as a result every vote becomes a zero-sum contest. It does not have to be like this.
raxxorrax 6y ago
It doesn't matter if it is more effective, but it is cheaper than employing people connecting dots. Also the generation currently in politics would feel left behind if they didn't employ such pattern matching systems, even if there is no evidence of crime reduction. It is part of the quantification of everything. You don't just get a number, you get several thousands and the judgement on you is calculated on the fly. I think people responsible here are still the ones that decided to buy it. They are responsible the market exists. Also not a mystery since those people are mostly evaluated by how many people they put behind bars.

jlokier 6y ago

> A possible solution to this is creating data points for everyone A better solution is to use better statistics. If you think you need to collect redundant extra data about innocents just to improve inferences using the data you have, you're doing statistics wrong. This has come up with DNA databases too. Prosecutor's Fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/news/views/the-prosecutors-fallacy https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/news/views/the-prosecutors-fallacy "The Prosecutor’s Fallacy is most often associated with miscarriages of justice. It’s when the probability of innocence given the evidence is wrongly assumed to equal an infinitesimally small probability that that evidence would occur if the defendant was innocent. Consequently, highly improbable innocent explanations have led to the assumption of guilt,"

lxnn 6y ago
It's essentially when information that was used to identify the suspect is presented as confirmation of their guilt. > The witness described a tall, white, black-haired man with a tattoo on his right ankle. Only .001% of the population match this description, so there is only a .001% chance that the suspect is innocent. Of course, this ignores the fact that they compared the description against a database of one million people, among whom you would expect to find 10 coincidental matches. For the same reason more data is required to select a model than to validate a model in machine learning.

jojobas 6y ago

There is no problem that the information on past offenders is searchable. There is a bit of a problem that information on non-offenders is sucked in as well, but even that is moderately ok as long as anyone can see what the system has on them (currently it's not the case), who accessed it and why.

luckylion 6y ago
So if you're a criminal, just regularly check whether your data has been accessed and why?
- jojobas 6y ago
  Criminals have right to due process too. Perhaps the access data should be released with a delay to protect current investigations, or sealed altogether for a very good reason with appropriate authority.