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I am very skeptical. I suspect that the accuracy - metric undisclosed in the article - is dominated by “easy” cases. For example, I can tell you where protest

I am very skeptical. I suspect that the accuracy - metric undisclosed in the article - is dominated by “easy” cases. For example, I can tell you where protestation / solicitation will occur next week with 100 percent positive predictive value. Same with car break ins and drug dealing. You don’t need an algorithm for that. You can figure it out by just driving around a few neighborhoods for a couple hours. I suspect that the algorithm does not do well on the non-obvious stuff.

erichocean 4y ago
Is it important for the algorithm to "do well" on the non-obvious stuff? Why not handle low-hanging fruit first, and then try progressively (heh) harder situations?
- zoover2020 4y ago
  It's the risk of bias slipping into the algorithms. See news coverage on Dutch cities using algorithms to predict financial crime/fraud. Ethnic profiling quickly becomes a thing.
- dunefox 4y ago
  If the dataset is unbalanced a model that predicts the majority class only can have a very high accuracy, while being useless.
- dagw 4y ago
  Why not handle low-hanging fruit first Because we don't need help on the obvious stuff. Cops already know where the low level drug dealers hang out and where the prostitutes work, they don't need a computer to tell them that. Also things like 'there will probably be a shooting in this violent neighborhood sometime within the next 7 days' is completely useless information, even if correct. There is no new actionable information that can improve on the current policing situation.
- pfisherman 4y ago
  It is important because otherwise it has negative utility. There is a cost associated with building, deploying, operating and maintaining it. What value is this adding if it only tells me stuff I already know?
daniel-cussen 4y ago
Yeah like Plutonium Fountain on the edge of Lastarria in downtown Santiago. I have witnessed, defended against, or interceded in 6 crimes at this one intersection. One at the fountain itself, which is technically a beautiful statue of Neptune and Amphitrite. Like urchins bathe there, dudes washing their clothes. It's a dangerous intersection because there's five streets radiating from it. The traffic system is a little anti-pedestrian, or pedestrianophile, out to fuck pedestrians. So in Santiago there's three crosswalks per residential intersection, figuring if a pedestrian wanted to cross on the missing crosswalk all she'd have to do is cross all the other crosswalks. More efficient. So Plutonium Fountain has a really short light, just really timings, so you have to walk across on a red all the fucking time. And like motorized bicycles crossing reds, cars almost running you over...several traffic violations, just rough. It's also the point where the grid of the city gets warped by the Cerro Santa Lucía, beyond there it is all squares, this is where the Manhattan geometry meets the actual geography, the Cerro Huelén as its also called and the road to the river. Like a bottleneck. This is where the shit hits the fan. I can predict with 1 likelihood there'll be twenty crimes at that fountain in the next month. Not with machine learning! Just spinal. And of course I'm not going to waste the sight I have on figuring out how many more crimes there will be, but there will be twenty and there will be more. Like twenty and six, twenty and seven, there are twenty and there are also seven. Twenty and some other amount.
- ckdarby 4y ago
  Imagine applying your specific knowledge of this one location across every neighborhood in a click of a button. That is what the article hype seems to be about.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  (OT Advice: you may want to check Lastarria, Santiago (and the Fuente Nettuno itself, at -33.4416,-70.6439) on Google Maps User Content or similar. It's unmissable. I'd so much love to be there. How is crime against people and property in the area? BTW: it should probably be "Poseidon's Fountain"... Pluto's part would be underground.)
  - 4y ago

erichocean 4y ago

Is it important for the algorithm to "do well" on the non-obvious stuff? Why not handle low-hanging fruit first, and then try progressively (heh) harder situations?

zoover2020 4y ago
It's the risk of bias slipping into the algorithms. See news coverage on Dutch cities using algorithms to predict financial crime/fraud. Ethnic profiling quickly becomes a thing.
dunefox 4y ago
If the dataset is unbalanced a model that predicts the majority class only can have a very high accuracy, while being useless.
dagw 4y ago
Why not handle low-hanging fruit first Because we don't need help on the obvious stuff. Cops already know where the low level drug dealers hang out and where the prostitutes work, they don't need a computer to tell them that. Also things like 'there will probably be a shooting in this violent neighborhood sometime within the next 7 days' is completely useless information, even if correct. There is no new actionable information that can improve on the current policing situation.
pfisherman 4y ago
It is important because otherwise it has negative utility. There is a cost associated with building, deploying, operating and maintaining it. What value is this adding if it only tells me stuff I already know?

daniel-cussen 4y ago

Yeah like Plutonium Fountain on the edge of Lastarria in downtown Santiago. I have witnessed, defended against, or interceded in 6 crimes at this one intersection. One at the fountain itself, which is technically a beautiful statue of Neptune and Amphitrite. Like urchins bathe there, dudes washing their clothes. It's a dangerous intersection because there's five streets radiating from it. The traffic system is a little anti-pedestrian, or pedestrianophile, out to fuck pedestrians. So in Santiago there's three crosswalks per residential intersection, figuring if a pedestrian wanted to cross on the missing crosswalk all she'd have to do is cross all the other crosswalks. More efficient. So Plutonium Fountain has a really short light, just really timings, so you have to walk across on a red all the fucking time. And like motorized bicycles crossing reds, cars almost running you over...several traffic violations, just rough. It's also the point where the grid of the city gets warped by the Cerro Santa Lucía, beyond there it is all squares, this is where the Manhattan geometry meets the actual geography, the Cerro Huelén as its also called and the road to the river. Like a bottleneck. This is where the shit hits the fan. I can predict with 1 likelihood there'll be twenty crimes at that fountain in the next month. Not with machine learning! Just spinal. And of course I'm not going to waste the sight I have on figuring out how many more crimes there will be, but there will be twenty and there will be more. Like twenty and six, twenty and seven, there are twenty and there are also seven. Twenty and some other amount.

ckdarby 4y ago
Imagine applying your specific knowledge of this one location across every neighborhood in a click of a button. That is what the article hype seems to be about.
mdp2021 4y ago
(OT Advice: you may want to check Lastarria, Santiago (and the Fuente Nettuno itself, at -33.4416,-70.6439) on Google Maps User Content or similar. It's unmissable. I'd so much love to be there. How is crime against people and property in the area? BTW: it should probably be "Poseidon's Fountain"... Pluto's part would be underground.)
- 4y ago