9 ms·

West Midlands police chief quits over AI hallucination

bell-cot 9mo ago
A wonderful precedent. Now if only it could be applied to other professions, and lower-profile cases...
- JanSolo 9mo ago
  Agreed. All humans need to learn to fact-check their sources. Especially those in decision-making roles.
  - Ylpertnodi 9mo ago
    "Trust but verify', very often equals 'fuck it, I'll do it myself'.
- hamdingers 9mo ago
  I worry the precedent is backwards, the source of the error suffers no repercussions. In areas where we move away from humans doing work into humans checking the work of agents, we should be worried about an arrangement where the human is present only as an accountability sink for the mistakes of the agent.
  - mattmanser 9mo ago
    It's not clear what happened from this news report. His error in judgement may have been he hadn't investigated the problem sufficiently. Then falsely testified to the government. That's a big deal on its own. The officer involved might have been fired or reprimanded, we don't know from that article.
phyzome 9mo ago
I'd rather that the cops who actually used the AI slop had been reprimanded, and the chief had been kept... I wonder if this was one of those Google AI "summaries" that people are so happy to trust.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  > I wonder if this was one of those Google AI "summaries" that people are so happy to trust. "Microsoft Co Pilot" (sic) is being called out as the tool that was used. Does Microsoft have anything similar to Google's AI summaries on Bing or inside other Microsoft products, like Windows?
  - nottorp 9mo ago
    With both MS and Google pushing "AI" on everything, it's possible no one realized they're reading an "AI" summary and the Copilot branding was what was on Word. Hey btw, how do "AI" summaries on Google search look? Exactly like honest [1] results, like they did with ads? [1] If there are any honest results left on a Google search. My impression is everything is from content mills, be it "AI" or human slop.
- tetris11 9mo ago
  Same. The fact that he stepped down harkens back to a time when officials took responsibility for their gaffs. Given the current pedigree of public officials, I'd rather that he stayed on, instead of being replaced by someone worse
throwaway85825 9mo ago
It wasn't because of the AI hallucinations but the intent of the document the hallucinations appeared in.
- jaapz 9mo ago
  And the fact that he initially blatantly lied about AI being used
  - throwaway85825 9mo ago
    There were multiple failings.
  - chrisjj 9mo ago
    We do not know he lied.
    - ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
      > On 6 January, Guildford told MPs on the home affairs committee that officers had found this material through a Google search that did not involve use of AI functions. "We do not use AI," he said in evidence to MPs. Yes, he lied to MPs.
      - chrisjj 9mo ago
        That requires but fails to show intent to deceive. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/14/west-midlands-police-chief-apologises-ai-error-maccabi-tel-aviv-ban https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/14/west-midland... “I had understood and been advised that the match had been identified by way of a Google search in preparation for attending HAC. My belief that this was the case was honestly held and there was no intention to mislead the committee.”
        ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
        Maybe in a court of law, but "lying" is generally understood as making an untrue statement from a position of supposed knowledge, which this certainly is. It's an often used trick to make an absolute statement about something and then when later found out, they deny that they knew the specifics despite being in a position where that knowledge would be very much part of their job. Accountability is what we need rather than weasel words and assurances that can't be trusted. He certainly wasn't telling the truth.
alistairSH 9mo ago
But the cop who generated the report is still on staff and free to do more idiotic things in the future?
- bell-cot 9mo ago
  Probably? But across a large org, "a worker bee doing X cost the previous CEO his job" is a far stronger lesson than "a worker bee doing X cost him his job".
  - mitchitized 9mo ago
    I'd say the exact opposite, "doing this will get YOU fired" is the strongest possible message.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
  - alistairSH 9mo ago
    It’s a strong message to senior management to insert proper oversight. It’s not a strong message to line employees to use their brains.
- jimnotgym 9mo ago
  An organisational administrator can stop their team using Copilot and tell them not to use other tools. If the officer had used tools after that then they should indeed be disciplined
  - spankalee 9mo ago
    A gen AI tool doesn't spontaneously open up and say "Hey, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are hooligans". The intent is usually from the user. It's quite possible that the officer prompted the AI while in Word with something like "Help me write a reason we should ban these fans".
  - jolmg 9mo ago
oldjim798 9mo ago
The police should be banned from using AI in any form
- lloydatkinson 9mo ago
  Just wait till the UK police decide to outsource social media Wrong Think detection to LLM's.
  - hexbin010 9mo ago
    They are likely already doing it
- Kapura 9mo ago
  this is true of many fields.
- secondcoming 9mo ago
  True. The judiciary are using it too: https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/overwhelming-support-for-investigation-into-judge-over-anomalies-in-peggie-judgment https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/overwhelming-support-...
  - add-sub-mul-div 9mo ago
    The Judiciary's New Clothes
- blibble 9mo ago
  everyone else too
- simianwords 9mo ago
  the police should also be banned from using google, reddit and youtube.
  - oldjim798 9mo ago
    Yes
flooow 9mo ago
This story has been horribly misreported in the mainstream media. Suffice to say that the AI gaff was the very thinnest pretence for a politically motivated firing. The true reason being that West Midlands Police made the UK govt furious for suggesting that maybe Maccabi were violent thugs rather than persecuted victims, which goes against prevailing official narratives WRT Israel. I have only found one news source that actual tells the story properly (warning, long read): https://whispering.media/the-maccabi-gospel/ https://whispering.media/the-maccabi-gospel/
- qweiopqweiop 9mo ago
  I'll share my opposing view point. Whilst Maccabi fans may contain hooligans, that's not really surprising for football fans. Fans travelling within Europe cause trouble all the time. What is different, is that Maccabi fans were blocked from attending by the police/council when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment. Secondly, the police were aware of plans within the Birmingham Muslim community to attack said fans. Instead of coming down on these people planning violence, they decided to avoid the situation entirely. Furthermore, they ignored evidence from the Amsterdam authorities who haven't said the Maccabi fans were as riotous as you claim. Using AI hallucinations was just the cherry on the cake.
  - dundarious 9mo ago
    > when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv.
    - tome 9mo ago
      > > when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment > This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv. Sorry, what treatment are you talking about exactly? Your parent seems to be referring to the treatment of being "blocked from attending by the police/council". Is that what you mean is often doled out to clubs/fans?
      - 9mo ago
PaulRobinson 9mo ago
Talk about a misleading headline. After months of widespread protests across the UK, the police in West Midlands looked at multiple intelligence reports and concluded that protests and violence would be inevitable if the match went ahead and fans from Maccabi Tel Aviv were allowed to travel to Aston Villa's ground. Their advice was that away fans should not be granted tickets to the event. The issues at the core of this decision are about alleged antisemitism rising in the UK, presumed violence of a group of fans with an uncertain intelligence picture, and how decisions were made with these analyses trading off against each other. He resigned because of that process leading to the Home Secretary no longer having confidence in him. I don't think the misleading of the select committee would have helped him, but he gave an answer based on all that he knew at that point in time, with the best of intentions. The fact he hadn't been briefed isn't his fault. The fact he leaned into a decision that had wide-ranging political ramifications without first opening up the discussion to more stakeholders is his fault, and it's why he's no longer in the job.
- gtirloni 9mo ago
  > Talk about a misleading headline. Something I always expect from TheRegister.
- gadders 9mo ago
  >>that protests and violence would be inevitable God forbid they enforce the law.
- physicsguy 9mo ago
  Come on, that's not the full story at all. The body that made the recommendation, the "Safety and Advisory Board" met several times and changed their report multiple times. When it was finally released they redacted large parts of the decision making process including saying that: * The police didn't want the match to go ahead (prior to any evidence for that) * Two local Muslim councillors (Labour and Lib Dem) had been lobbying against it going ahead with one saying (quote) 'we are the voice of the people' Additionally: * They edited the report saying risk to local muslim residents went from Medium -> High * They edited the report saying risk to fans travelling went from High -> Medium. * They adjusted the number of police needed from 1200 -> 5000 in order to try and justify the decision. When the full unredacted report was leaked, then they were put on the back foot and falsely threw out that they'd got the evidence (including of local muslim residents in Amsterdam being thrown in a river, which didn't happen) from a Dutch Police report, which wasn't true. Anyone with a brain in the police should know that recommending cancellation or banning away fans from a Champion's League game is a major international news story. The chief of police needs to be on top of the details and 100% sure that the evidence is there.
epgui 9mo ago
Is it just me (English as a second language but very fluent) or is this extremely hard to read? Does this even grammar?
- majorchord 9mo ago
  If you're referring to the headline in the article, it's slang. To "cop out" means you are giving up without a fight.
  - thaumasiotes 9mo ago
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cop_it https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cop_it https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cop_out https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cop_out I don't see a gloss for "cop out" that matches the one you give, and the only one I'm personally familiar with is most similar to sense 1, "perform in an insufficient, negligent, or superficial manner".† And even there, I would think of the derived noun as being the basic vocabulary item, even if the etymology is the other way around. That said, the sense I get from "Cop cops it after Copilot cops out" is 'this is using vocabulary I don't know, because it's British', not 'how is it possible to put the words together this way?'. It looks like a fairly normal sentence using exotic vocabulary. † As a separate issue, I don't think the gloss you give can be correct here, because the thing that's supposed to have copped out is Copilot, and what it did was to produce false statements, not surrender before a fight. If we want to rephrase this headline to avoid any use of the token "cop(s)", it looks something like "Policeman gets in trouble after Copilot screws up" to me.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- hexbin010 9mo ago
  The Register tends to use a lot of puns/colloquialisms etc
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9mo ago
    It's a British tradition. I was certain there would be a wikipedia page on that, but I can't find anything.
amiga386 9mo ago
FYI: there is a growth of sectarian and antisemitic behaviour in the UK. Last year, a man named Jihad Al-Shamie attacked a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and killed two congregants before he could be stopped. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd63p1djgd7o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd63p1djgd7o Antisemitic attacks have increased. Jews do not feel safe in Birmingham. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvdxrr0mxpo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvdxrr0mxpo Right next door to Aston Villa is Birmingham's Perry Bar ward, where they elected the independent MP Ayoub Khan, for what seems to be his support for the Palestinian side of the Israel-Palestine war. The West Midlands police were keen to give the impression that they were even-handed and fair in banning Maccabi fans, claiming they consulted multiple faith communities in Birmingham, and besides Maccabi fans are rotters, look at what they did at this other match. The other match did not exist. The Jewish community did not ask for the Maccabi fans to be banned. Those were lies. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ng15qmy9o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ng15qmy9o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev82g41vpdo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev82g41vpdo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxw2nv6vzzo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxw2nv6vzzo > As the match was played last month, pro-Palestinian protesters, including Independent MP Ayoub Khan, gathered outside the stadium, waving flags and banners calling for an end to violence in Gaza. In my view, the West Midlands police probably had partisan community leaders like Mr Khan tell them to keep Jewish/Israeli fans out of Birmingham or they'd cause a riot, and the police meekly went along with this, then concealed this true reason, and made up bullshit reasons for banning the fans... which they have been caught out on, because they used a chatbot that hallucinated falsehoods and they didn't even verify it before using it as justification to a Parliamentary select committee. That is what is known as misleading Parliament. That's why the chief's position is untenable.
- paganel 9mo ago
  > there is a growth of sectarian and antisemitic behaviour in the UK. Gaza.
- pydry 9mo ago
  Im glad al shamie is dead, but do you condemn the Maccabi fans recorded on camera in Amsterdam repeatedly chanting "death to arabs" and "there are no more schools in gaza because we destroyed them?" Do you condemn the army of an extremely racist state that committed what the UN describes as genocide?
nedjdkdkdk 9mo ago
[flagged]
midlander 9mo ago
That police “intelligence” relies on a google search rather than internal records or in exchange with other precincts and databases is ridiculous.
jolmg 9mo ago
All comments seem to assume the officers lied about not using AI, but the article doesn't actually say that: > officers had found this material through a Google search > the erroneous result concerning the West Ham v Maccabi Tel Aviv match arose as result of a use of Microsoft Co Pilot > his force used fictional output from Microsoft Copilot What this says is that the material originates from Copilot. I suppose you can read that and interpret that they lied about the Google search, but if you assume incompetence over malice, the more likely interpretation is that they didn't properly verify their source found through Google. It could have been the source of the source of their source that used Copilot, not the officers themselves. The takeaway here is that even if you don't use AI tools and do things as you did before AI, you may still be basing your work on AI content. A parallel may someone saying they don't use AI in their code because they don't use AI tools, but then it turns out that a dependency of a dependency is built by AI.
- chrisjj 9mo ago
  True. The biggest problem with "AI" going forward may only be that it doesn't sign its work.
DoctorOetker 9mo ago
How about an origin agnostic rule for soccer fans: they must wear portable cameras, and pay a bail (which they get back upon good behavior), they pay the escrow at the point of arrival (border train station or at the airport) and return the camera gear at point of departure, upon which they get their escrow back. Aggressive hooligans don't come at all, or pay ever greater escrows (doubling whenever they misbehave, or halvig when they behave (but never halving below the minimum escrow value). I think local population would appreciate such measures, regardless of the origin or religious affiliation of aggressive soccer fans. Sure the soccer industry may suffer from a decrease in ticket sales, but at some point its not soccer industry, but a vacation of violence for the highest bidder... and the local population pays in material damages...
MoKetchups 9mo ago
I've been running tests on exactly this - AI systems making things up when they hit structural limits. Tested 5 architectures (GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, Llama, DeepSeek) with a 13-question battery targeting edge cases where self-reference collides with operational constraints. The interesting finding: hallucination patterns aren't random - they follow architectural signatures. Each system fails in predictable ways when forced to reconcile contradictory instructions with their training. Full methodology and raw outputs: https://github.com/moketchups/Demerzel https://github.com/moketchups/Demerzel

A wonderful precedent. Now if only it could be applied to other professions, and lower-profile cases...

JanSolo 9mo ago
Agreed. All humans need to learn to fact-check their sources. Especially those in decision-making roles.
- Ylpertnodi 9mo ago
  "Trust but verify', very often equals 'fuck it, I'll do it myself'.
hamdingers 9mo ago
I worry the precedent is backwards, the source of the error suffers no repercussions. In areas where we move away from humans doing work into humans checking the work of agents, we should be worried about an arrangement where the human is present only as an accountability sink for the mistakes of the agent.
- mattmanser 9mo ago
  It's not clear what happened from this news report. His error in judgement may have been he hadn't investigated the problem sufficiently. Then falsely testified to the government. That's a big deal on its own. The officer involved might have been fired or reprimanded, we don't know from that article.

I'd rather that the cops who actually used the AI slop had been reprimanded, and the chief had been kept... I wonder if this was one of those Google AI "summaries" that people are so happy to trust.

embedding-shape 9mo ago
> I wonder if this was one of those Google AI "summaries" that people are so happy to trust. "Microsoft Co Pilot" (sic) is being called out as the tool that was used. Does Microsoft have anything similar to Google's AI summaries on Bing or inside other Microsoft products, like Windows?
- nottorp 9mo ago
  With both MS and Google pushing "AI" on everything, it's possible no one realized they're reading an "AI" summary and the Copilot branding was what was on Word. Hey btw, how do "AI" summaries on Google search look? Exactly like honest [1] results, like they did with ads? [1] If there are any honest results left on a Google search. My impression is everything is from content mills, be it "AI" or human slop.
tetris11 9mo ago
Same. The fact that he stepped down harkens back to a time when officials took responsibility for their gaffs. Given the current pedigree of public officials, I'd rather that he stayed on, instead of being replaced by someone worse

throwaway85825 9mo ago

It wasn't because of the AI hallucinations but the intent of the document the hallucinations appeared in.

jaapz 9mo ago
And the fact that he initially blatantly lied about AI being used
- throwaway85825 9mo ago
  There were multiple failings.
- chrisjj 9mo ago
  We do not know he lied.
  - ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
    > On 6 January, Guildford told MPs on the home affairs committee that officers had found this material through a Google search that did not involve use of AI functions. "We do not use AI," he said in evidence to MPs. Yes, he lied to MPs.
    - chrisjj 9mo ago
      That requires but fails to show intent to deceive. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/14/west-midlands-police-chief-apologises-ai-error-maccabi-tel-aviv-ban https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/14/west-midland... “I had understood and been advised that the match had been identified by way of a Google search in preparation for attending HAC. My belief that this was the case was honestly held and there was no intention to mislead the committee.”
      - ndsipa_pomu 9mo ago
        Maybe in a court of law, but "lying" is generally understood as making an untrue statement from a position of supposed knowledge, which this certainly is. It's an often used trick to make an absolute statement about something and then when later found out, they deny that they knew the specifics despite being in a position where that knowledge would be very much part of their job. Accountability is what we need rather than weasel words and assurances that can't be trusted. He certainly wasn't telling the truth.

alistairSH 9mo ago

But the cop who generated the report is still on staff and free to do more idiotic things in the future?

bell-cot 9mo ago
Probably? But across a large org, "a worker bee doing X cost the previous CEO his job" is a far stronger lesson than "a worker bee doing X cost him his job".
- mitchitized 9mo ago
  I'd say the exact opposite, "doing this will get YOU fired" is the strongest possible message.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
- alistairSH 9mo ago
  It’s a strong message to senior management to insert proper oversight. It’s not a strong message to line employees to use their brains.
jimnotgym 9mo ago
An organisational administrator can stop their team using Copilot and tell them not to use other tools. If the officer had used tools after that then they should indeed be disciplined
- spankalee 9mo ago
  A gen AI tool doesn't spontaneously open up and say "Hey, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are hooligans". The intent is usually from the user. It's quite possible that the officer prompted the AI while in Word with something like "Help me write a reason we should ban these fans".
- jolmg 9mo ago

oldjim798 9mo ago

The police should be banned from using AI in any form

lloydatkinson 9mo ago
Just wait till the UK police decide to outsource social media Wrong Think detection to LLM's.
- hexbin010 9mo ago
  They are likely already doing it
Kapura 9mo ago
this is true of many fields.
secondcoming 9mo ago
True. The judiciary are using it too: https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/overwhelming-support-for-investigation-into-judge-over-anomalies-in-peggie-judgment https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/overwhelming-support-...
- add-sub-mul-div 9mo ago
  The Judiciary's New Clothes
blibble 9mo ago
everyone else too
simianwords 9mo ago
the police should also be banned from using google, reddit and youtube.
- oldjim798 9mo ago
  Yes

flooow 9mo ago

This story has been horribly misreported in the mainstream media. Suffice to say that the AI gaff was the very thinnest pretence for a politically motivated firing. The true reason being that West Midlands Police made the UK govt furious for suggesting that maybe Maccabi were violent thugs rather than persecuted victims, which goes against prevailing official narratives WRT Israel. I have only found one news source that actual tells the story properly (warning, long read): https://whispering.media/the-maccabi-gospel/ https://whispering.media/the-maccabi-gospel/

qweiopqweiop 9mo ago
I'll share my opposing view point. Whilst Maccabi fans may contain hooligans, that's not really surprising for football fans. Fans travelling within Europe cause trouble all the time. What is different, is that Maccabi fans were blocked from attending by the police/council when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment. Secondly, the police were aware of plans within the Birmingham Muslim community to attack said fans. Instead of coming down on these people planning violence, they decided to avoid the situation entirely. Furthermore, they ignored evidence from the Amsterdam authorities who haven't said the Maccabi fans were as riotous as you claim. Using AI hallucinations was just the cherry on the cake.
- dundarious 9mo ago
  > when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv.
  - tome 9mo ago
    > > when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment > This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv. Sorry, what treatment are you talking about exactly? Your parent seems to be referring to the treatment of being "blocked from attending by the police/council". Is that what you mean is often doled out to clubs/fans?
    - 9mo ago

PaulRobinson 9mo ago

Talk about a misleading headline. After months of widespread protests across the UK, the police in West Midlands looked at multiple intelligence reports and concluded that protests and violence would be inevitable if the match went ahead and fans from Maccabi Tel Aviv were allowed to travel to Aston Villa's ground. Their advice was that away fans should not be granted tickets to the event. The issues at the core of this decision are about alleged antisemitism rising in the UK, presumed violence of a group of fans with an uncertain intelligence picture, and how decisions were made with these analyses trading off against each other. He resigned because of that process leading to the Home Secretary no longer having confidence in him. I don't think the misleading of the select committee would have helped him, but he gave an answer based on all that he knew at that point in time, with the best of intentions. The fact he hadn't been briefed isn't his fault. The fact he leaned into a decision that had wide-ranging political ramifications without first opening up the discussion to more stakeholders is his fault, and it's why he's no longer in the job.

gtirloni 9mo ago
> Talk about a misleading headline. Something I always expect from TheRegister.
gadders 9mo ago
>>that protests and violence would be inevitable God forbid they enforce the law.
physicsguy 9mo ago
Come on, that's not the full story at all. The body that made the recommendation, the "Safety and Advisory Board" met several times and changed their report multiple times. When it was finally released they redacted large parts of the decision making process including saying that: * The police didn't want the match to go ahead (prior to any evidence for that) * Two local Muslim councillors (Labour and Lib Dem) had been lobbying against it going ahead with one saying (quote) 'we are the voice of the people' Additionally: * They edited the report saying risk to local muslim residents went from Medium -> High * They edited the report saying risk to fans travelling went from High -> Medium. * They adjusted the number of police needed from 1200 -> 5000 in order to try and justify the decision. When the full unredacted report was leaked, then they were put on the back foot and falsely threw out that they'd got the evidence (including of local muslim residents in Amsterdam being thrown in a river, which didn't happen) from a Dutch Police report, which wasn't true. Anyone with a brain in the police should know that recommending cancellation or banning away fans from a Champion's League game is a major international news story. The chief of police needs to be on top of the details and 100% sure that the evidence is there.

epgui 9mo ago

Is it just me (English as a second language but very fluent) or is this extremely hard to read? Does this even grammar?

majorchord 9mo ago
If you're referring to the headline in the article, it's slang. To "cop out" means you are giving up without a fight.
- thaumasiotes 9mo ago
  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cop_it https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cop_it https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cop_out https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cop_out I don't see a gloss for "cop out" that matches the one you give, and the only one I'm personally familiar with is most similar to sense 1, "perform in an insufficient, negligent, or superficial manner".† And even there, I would think of the derived noun as being the basic vocabulary item, even if the etymology is the other way around. That said, the sense I get from "Cop cops it after Copilot cops out" is 'this is using vocabulary I don't know, because it's British', not 'how is it possible to put the words together this way?'. It looks like a fairly normal sentence using exotic vocabulary. † As a separate issue, I don't think the gloss you give can be correct here, because the thing that's supposed to have copped out is Copilot, and what it did was to produce false statements, not surrender before a fight. If we want to rephrase this headline to avoid any use of the token "cop(s)", it looks something like "Policeman gets in trouble after Copilot screws up" to me.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
hexbin010 9mo ago
The Register tends to use a lot of puns/colloquialisms etc
- YeGoblynQueenne 9mo ago
  It's a British tradition. I was certain there would be a wikipedia page on that, but I can't find anything.

amiga386 9mo ago

FYI: there is a growth of sectarian and antisemitic behaviour in the UK. Last year, a man named Jihad Al-Shamie attacked a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and killed two congregants before he could be stopped. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd63p1djgd7o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd63p1djgd7o Antisemitic attacks have increased. Jews do not feel safe in Birmingham. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvdxrr0mxpo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvdxrr0mxpo Right next door to Aston Villa is Birmingham's Perry Bar ward, where they elected the independent MP Ayoub Khan, for what seems to be his support for the Palestinian side of the Israel-Palestine war. The West Midlands police were keen to give the impression that they were even-handed and fair in banning Maccabi fans, claiming they consulted multiple faith communities in Birmingham, and besides Maccabi fans are rotters, look at what they did at this other match. The other match did not exist. The Jewish community did not ask for the Maccabi fans to be banned. Those were lies. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ng15qmy9o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ng15qmy9o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev82g41vpdo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev82g41vpdo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxw2nv6vzzo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxw2nv6vzzo > As the match was played last month, pro-Palestinian protesters, including Independent MP Ayoub Khan, gathered outside the stadium, waving flags and banners calling for an end to violence in Gaza. In my view, the West Midlands police probably had partisan community leaders like Mr Khan tell them to keep Jewish/Israeli fans out of Birmingham or they'd cause a riot, and the police meekly went along with this, then concealed this true reason, and made up bullshit reasons for banning the fans... which they have been caught out on, because they used a chatbot that hallucinated falsehoods and they didn't even verify it before using it as justification to a Parliamentary select committee. That is what is known as misleading Parliament. That's why the chief's position is untenable.

paganel 9mo ago
> there is a growth of sectarian and antisemitic behaviour in the UK. Gaza.
pydry 9mo ago
Im glad al shamie is dead, but do you condemn the Maccabi fans recorded on camera in Amsterdam repeatedly chanting "death to arabs" and "there are no more schools in gaza because we destroyed them?" Do you condemn the army of an extremely racist state that committed what the UN describes as genocide?

nedjdkdkdk 9mo ago

[flagged]

midlander 9mo ago

That police “intelligence” relies on a google search rather than internal records or in exchange with other precincts and databases is ridiculous.

jolmg 9mo ago

All comments seem to assume the officers lied about not using AI, but the article doesn't actually say that: > officers had found this material through a Google search > the erroneous result concerning the West Ham v Maccabi Tel Aviv match arose as result of a use of Microsoft Co Pilot > his force used fictional output from Microsoft Copilot What this says is that the material originates from Copilot. I suppose you can read that and interpret that they lied about the Google search, but if you assume incompetence over malice, the more likely interpretation is that they didn't properly verify their source found through Google. It could have been the source of the source of their source that used Copilot, not the officers themselves. The takeaway here is that even if you don't use AI tools and do things as you did before AI, you may still be basing your work on AI content. A parallel may someone saying they don't use AI in their code because they don't use AI tools, but then it turns out that a dependency of a dependency is built by AI.

chrisjj 9mo ago
True. The biggest problem with "AI" going forward may only be that it doesn't sign its work.

DoctorOetker 9mo ago

How about an origin agnostic rule for soccer fans: they must wear portable cameras, and pay a bail (which they get back upon good behavior), they pay the escrow at the point of arrival (border train station or at the airport) and return the camera gear at point of departure, upon which they get their escrow back. Aggressive hooligans don't come at all, or pay ever greater escrows (doubling whenever they misbehave, or halvig when they behave (but never halving below the minimum escrow value). I think local population would appreciate such measures, regardless of the origin or religious affiliation of aggressive soccer fans. Sure the soccer industry may suffer from a decrease in ticket sales, but at some point its not soccer industry, but a vacation of violence for the highest bidder... and the local population pays in material damages...

MoKetchups 9mo ago

I've been running tests on exactly this - AI systems making things up when they hit structural limits. Tested 5 architectures (GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, Llama, DeepSeek) with a 13-question battery targeting edge cases where self-reference collides with operational constraints. The interesting finding: hallucination patterns aren't random - they follow architectural signatures. Each system fails in predictable ways when forced to reconcile contradictory instructions with their training. Full methodology and raw outputs: https://github.com/moketchups/Demerzel https://github.com/moketchups/Demerzel