Could predictive policing contribute to police shootings? Palantir: the ‘special ops’ tech giant that wields as much real-world power as Google
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DuncanIdaho
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:51 am    Post subject: Could predictive policing contribute to police shootings? Palantir: the ‘special ops’ tech giant that wields as much real-world power as Google

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Palantir: the ‘special ops’ tech giant that wields as much real-world power as Google

In Minority Report, the 2002 movie adaptation of the Philip K Dick novel, Tom Cruise plays a police officer in the LAPD “pre-crime” unit. Using the premonitions of sentient mutants called “pre-cogs”, the police are able to predict when someone is going to commit a crime before it happens, swooping down from helicopters and arresting them on the street before they can do anything. Their “crime” is that they merely thought about it.

Palantir, the CIA-backed startup, is Minority Report come true. It is all-powerful, yet no one knows it even exists. Palantir does not have an office, it has a “SCIF” on a back street in Palo Alto, California. SCIF stands for “sensitive compartmentalised information facility”. Palantir says its building “must be built to be resistant to attempts to access the information within. The network must be ‘airgapped’ from the public internet to prevent information leakage.”

[...]

Minority Report is set in 2054, but Palantir is putting pre-crime into operation now. The Los Angeles Police Department has used Palantir to predict who will commit a crime by swooping Minority Report-style on suspects. Palantir calls its work with the LAPD “improving situational awareness, and responding to crime in real time”.

Algorithms take in data on the location, time and date of previously committed crimes and this data is superimposed to create hotspots on a map for police officers to patrol. A 2013 video about “predictive policing” by the National Science Foundation features an officer explaining how they used one of these maps to prevent an assault “before it happened”.

Military-grade surveillance technology has now migrated from Fallujah to the suburban neighbourhoods of LA. Predictive policing is being used on illegal drivers and petty criminals through a redeployment of techniques and algorithms used by the US army dealing with insurgents in Iraq and with civilian casualty patterns.

When the US is described as a “war zone” between police and young black males, it is rarely mentioned that tactics developed by the US military in a real war zone are actually being deployed. Is predictive policing as a counter-insurgency tactic a contributing factor in the epidemic of police shootings of unarmed black men in the past four years?

One could argue that sophisticated pre-crime algorithms are not necessary when being black and male is seen as reason enough for the police to swoop. What predictive policing has done is militarise American cities, creating a heightened culture of suspicion and fear in areas where tensions are highest and policing is already most difficult. Officers being led to certain neighbourhoods solely because of an algorithm is enough to cause tension; enough to ignite a powder keg and push a delicate policing situation over the edge.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/30/palantir-peter-thiel-cia-data-crime-police
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Aeneas Hunter
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 4:42 am    Post subject:

It's hard to know whether to take that seriously. It has a certain Infowars feel to it. A mysterious, secretive company is controlling everything based on algorithms. Right.
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Serenityy
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:26 am    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
It's hard to know whether to take that seriously. It has a certain Infowars feel to it. A mysterious, secretive company is controlling everything based on algorithms. Right.


Had some experience with them in a form I won't disclose, and I have never heard of such an algorithm. Though, its not like I was particularly in a position to know something like that. However, some of the clients that are/was worked with included the DHS and NSA.

------
This isn't directed at you, but:

A private company that uses optimization algorithms on big data for (in most cases) security purposes with those types of connections, I'm surprised, has remained outside of the public eye for so long.
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lakersken80
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:32 am    Post subject:

Sounds like a terrible idea.
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DuncanIdaho
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:34 pm    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
It's hard to know whether to take that seriously. It has a certain Infowars feel to it. A mysterious, secretive company is controlling everything based on algorithms. Right.


Palantir and what they do definitely isn't "infowars"-esque. I encourage you to look into the company a little more before casually dismissing them.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 1:01 pm    Post subject:

Used to be called profiling
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Aeneas Hunter
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 2:56 pm    Post subject:

DuncanIdaho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
It's hard to know whether to take that seriously. It has a certain Infowars feel to it. A mysterious, secretive company is controlling everything based on algorithms. Right.


Palantir and what they do definitely isn't "infowars"-esque. I encourage you to look into the company a little more before casually dismissing them.


I did. Whatever you think of Palantir, that article seemed way over the top.
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DuncanIdaho
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 4:18 pm    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
DuncanIdaho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
It's hard to know whether to take that seriously. It has a certain Infowars feel to it. A mysterious, secretive company is controlling everything based on algorithms. Right.


Palantir and what they do definitely isn't "infowars"-esque. I encourage you to look into the company a little more before casually dismissing them.


I did. Whatever you think of Palantir, that article seemed way over the top.


Yeah, it is actually pretty scary what they're able to do with big data. The NSA spying programs seemed over the top too until we had proof.

Here's another link for you. It goes much more in-depth:

Quote:
HOW PETER THIEL’S PALANTIR HELPED THE NSA SPY ON THE WHOLE WORLD

DONALD TRUMP HAS inherited the most powerful machine for spying ever devised. How this petty, vengeful man might wield and expand the sprawling American spy apparatus, already vulnerable to abuse, is disturbing enough on its own. But the outlook is even worse considering Trump’s vast preference for private sector expertise and new strategic friendship with Silicon Valley billionaire investor Peter Thiel, whose controversial (and opaque) company Palantir has long sought to sell governments an unmatched power to sift and exploit information of any kind. Thiel represents a perfect nexus of government clout with the kind of corporate swagger Trump loves. The Intercept can now reveal that Palantir has worked for years to boost the global dragnet of the NSA and its international partners, and was in fact co-created with American spies.

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:15 pm    Post subject:

Serenityy wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
It's hard to know whether to take that seriously. It has a certain Infowars feel to it. A mysterious, secretive company is controlling everything based on algorithms. Right.


Had some experience with them in a form I won't disclose, and I have never heard of such an algorithm. Though, its not like I was particularly in a position to know something like that. However, some of the clients that are/was worked with included the DHS and NSA.

------
This isn't directed at you, but:

A private company that uses optimization algorithms on big data for (in most cases) security purposes with those types of connections, I'm surprised, has remained outside of the public eye for so long.
yes the algorithm exists. and its not some infowars tinfoil crazy talk. its actually not that complicated. its just hot spots. where did crime happen before. keep running the data model over and over and you get red hot spots very warm ones, , warm, luke warm, cold. and yes it can change over time as the neighborhoods change over time due to "the rent is too da... high" and/or the police jailing everyone, or people growing up and out of being young criminals(small, medium, or large.)

Truth is, you dont need this to do a good job of keeping crime to a minimum(assuming we're talking about just using cops to do this and not using things outside of cops that creates the powder keg of very poor, densely populated areas.)

i've said this since i was a kid growing up in the hood. cops. its simple. you already know where the majority of the guys hang out to sell drugs, where the strolls are for the ladies of the night(men too), and where most gang activity takes place. lets be real. Just pull up a few squad cars and hang out in those areas. roll around..roll around. switch shifts. wash rinse and repeat. every now and then you patrol outside of that area just to make sure the fellas havent moved their operations down a block or two. thats it. people wont go but so far to do their crimes. you lock that area up by just hanging out. that will be that. but you dont have to do it gestapo style. you can community police. be seen. get out of the squad cars. talk to the usual suspects and the young kids growing up..you might stop a person from ever becoming a criminal of some sort.

but all of that wont be done any time soon because that would actually make it to efficient. too efficient means less overtime. less overtime means less pay. less pay/overtime means less budget...you get the point.

So sure they use these type of new techs to police **cough...harass**.

But i wont blame the tech. the tech is based on data. It is what it is.

To truly fixed the issues. you have to do more than just police. Just like overseas in these other countries you can't just bomb them and say let the troops go in. then leave. it has to be a better all around better sustainable setup. and until that cism is gone you will never have that. until economic discrimination is gone you will never have anything different. because if by some miracle america stops with the racism. Then it would just be all races broke together barely making ends meet and a lot of different races running together doing crimes. it would not stop if the cism stopped.

**by the way...this is also one thing they use to deploy helicopters"the ghetto bird" in Los Angeles in certain areas. when you know good and well no crimes has taken place yet. This has been an issue with L.A. residence since the 90's. and since certain..."hoods" are becoming more gentrified.. the NEW residence are complaining more often about said ghetto birds flying very low and often. The flying around low and often is supposed to let the criminals know that the cops know where they hang out and do their bidding. but think about a war movie and all those loud helictopters flying in and out of the base. well this aint war, and this aint a base. imagine how that sounds on a daily/nightly basis. imagine being a kid trying to do homework and you here that nonsense all the time. where's the peace and quiet? and you wonder why people are on edge and acting all extra nervous.
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Aeneas Hunter
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:38 pm    Post subject:

splashmtn wrote:
yes the algorithm exists. and its not some infowars tinfoil crazy talk.


I think you and Duncan are missing my point. I'm not saying that Palantir isn't doing this kind of stuff. I'm saying that the article in the Guardian is so over the top that it sounds like Infowars. Let's take a look at some quotes:

Quote:
Palantir watches everything you do and predicts what you will do next in order to stop it.

. . . .

Palantir does not just provide the Pentagon with a machine for global surveillance and the data-efficient fighting of war, it runs Wall Street, too. Palantir is exactly what it says it is: a giant digital eye like Saruman’s seeing stone in The Lord of the Rings.

. . . .

The Los Angeles Police Department has used Palantir to predict who will commit a crime by swooping Minority Report-style on suspects.


See what I'm saying?
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:59 pm    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
It's hard to know whether to take that seriously. It has a certain Infowars feel to it. A mysterious, secretive company is controlling everything based on algorithms. Right.


Well, I do know that police forces are starting to look to this kind predictive investigation. The extent to which they are actually implementing it I don't know. But it is a real thing - at least on a research level.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 6:11 pm    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
splashmtn wrote:
yes the algorithm exists. and its not some infowars tinfoil crazy talk.


I think you and Duncan are missing my point. I'm not saying that Palantir isn't doing this kind of stuff. I'm saying that the article in the Guardian is so over the top that it sounds like Infowars. Let's take a look at some quotes:

Quote:
Palantir watches everything you do and predicts what you will do next in order to stop it.

. . . .

Palantir does not just provide the Pentagon with a machine for global surveillance and the data-efficient fighting of war, it runs Wall Street, too. Palantir is exactly what it says it is: a giant digital eye like Saruman’s seeing stone in The Lord of the Rings.

. . . .

The Los Angeles Police Department has used Palantir to predict who will commit a crime by swooping Minority Report-style on suspects.


See what I'm saying?


It's certainly hyperbolic language. Perhaps the author got carried away. I can see how predictive data could lead to an investigation that later gathered data about conspiring for a crime.

But the idea the LAPD has swooped in and arrested people for a crime that wasn't committed makes no sense. There'd be no way to make the probable cause for the arrest to work. You can't arrest people for something they may do because an algorithm suggests it. And if the LAPD tried, I'm sure even a first day Public Defender could make that case be dismissed 2 minutes into the first appearance.
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Aeneas Hunter
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 6:27 pm    Post subject:

^^^^

In fairness, I am cherry picking quotes from the article. I don't mean to suggest that the author said that we really have Minority Report arrests. But when I see that level of hyperbole in an article, it sort of kills the credibility of the whole thing. What else is the author exaggerating?
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 6:35 pm    Post subject:

splashmtn wrote:
Serenityy wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
It's hard to know whether to take that seriously. It has a certain Infowars feel to it. A mysterious, secretive company is controlling everything based on algorithms. Right.


Had some experience with them in a form I won't disclose, and I have never heard of such an algorithm. Though, its not like I was particularly in a position to know something like that. However, some of the clients that are/was worked with included the DHS and NSA.

------
This isn't directed at you, but:

A private company that uses optimization algorithms on big data for (in most cases) security purposes with those types of connections, I'm surprised, has remained outside of the public eye for so long.


yes the algorithm exists. and its not some infowars tinfoil crazy talk. its actually not that complicated.


Mmm.. Whether I know it exists within Palantir is what I was referring to. Though... me believing it exists is something else entirely, which I most certainly do.


Last edited by Serenityy on Mon Jul 31, 2017 6:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 6:38 pm    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
^^^^

In fairness, I am cherry picking quotes from the article. I don't mean to suggest that the author said that we really have Minority Report arrests. But when I see that level of hyperbole in an article, it sort of kills the credibility of the whole thing. What else is the author exaggerating?


I get ya . . . I totally agree that this article is overblown in its description of the concept and the implementation of it.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 7:10 pm    Post subject:

DaMuleRules wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
^^^^

In fairness, I am cherry picking quotes from the article. I don't mean to suggest that the author said that we really have Minority Report arrests. But when I see that level of hyperbole in an article, it sort of kills the credibility of the whole thing. What else is the author exaggerating?


I get ya . . . I totally agree that this article is overblown in its description of the concept and the implementation of it.


Well it is the Guardian.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 8:51 pm    Post subject:

Studies show that police who have fired their weapon during work are more likely to be male, white and former military. So, yeah, we probably shouldn't be looking to incorporate more military tactics in our public live's.
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tox
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 12:48 am    Post subject:

I actually interviewed with Palantir and turned them down when they didn't want to place me on a machine learning team. Probably a good thing as I was pretty naive about what they do. I've heard from people in the industry that their ethics are questionable... but they are smart as hell.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 11:13 am    Post subject:

It might help the LAPD, as the LAPD has been resistant to assigning neighborhoods to cops, an artifact of the Chief Parker period. Basically, you have cops who don't know the neighborhoods well, as they rotate, and hence they might not know the hot spots as well as an NYC cop who is assigned to a specific neighborhood precinct. The upside of this approach is the reduction of police graft.

I see predictive analytics as having some value for an LAPD, but less so if a city uses a precinct approach. This is sort of a strange, specialized branch of predictive analytics, as the common application is in marketing.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 11:17 am    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
splashmtn wrote:
yes the algorithm exists. and its not some infowars tinfoil crazy talk.


I think you and Duncan are missing my point. I'm not saying that Palantir isn't doing this kind of stuff. I'm saying that the article in the Guardian is so over the top that it sounds like Infowars. Let's take a look at some quotes:

Quote:
Palantir watches everything you do and predicts what you will do next in order to stop it.

. . . .

Palantir does not just provide the Pentagon with a machine for global surveillance and the data-efficient fighting of war, it runs Wall Street, too. Palantir is exactly what it says it is: a giant digital eye like Saruman’s seeing stone in The Lord of the Rings.

. . . .

The Los Angeles Police Department has used Palantir to predict who will commit a crime by swooping Minority Report-style on suspects.


See what I'm saying?
oh i see what you're saying. I guess even though i read the article i wasnt really paying attention to the over the top stuff because I know what really exists. yeah they went way overboard with how the article was written. for them calling it minority report. that is false. also. or at least in the context they are trying to use the movie. everyone sees minority report and automatically thinks "uh oh...thought crime"

thats not what this is. its a stretch to call it that.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 11:20 am    Post subject:

tox wrote:
I actually interviewed with Palantir and turned them down when they didn't want to place me on a machine learning team. Probably a good thing as I was pretty naive about what they do. I've heard from people in the industry that their ethics are questionable... but they are smart as hell.
but thats also why maybe someone like you needed to be on the team. it could be a trump situation. on one hand no one wants to attach themselves to something so unethical(if that is actually the case). on the other hand who's going to protect us if no one is on the inside with a moral/ethical compass?
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 11:35 am    Post subject:

Where is the machine that predicts
the next nice/benevolent/kind/selfless
thing someone is gonna do?
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 7:15 pm    Post subject:

I am an LAPD officer and use this tool at work. The article over exaggerates its capabilities.
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Serenityy
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:00 pm    Post subject:

tox wrote:
I actually interviewed with Palantir and turned them down when they didn't want to place me on a machine learning team. Probably a good thing as I was pretty naive about what they do. I've heard from people in the industry that their ethics are questionable... but they are smart as hell.


Irrespective of ethics, the engineers there as a whole, are phenomenal.
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tox
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:56 pm    Post subject:

Serenityy wrote:
tox wrote:
I actually interviewed with Palantir and turned them down when they didn't want to place me on a machine learning team. Probably a good thing as I was pretty naive about what they do. I've heard from people in the industry that their ethics are questionable... but they are smart as hell.


Irrespective of ethics, the engineers there as a whole, are phenomenal.

Yep. But to be fair, their standards have gone down. My internship interviews weren't any harder than Google/ FB et al. and my friend who got a full time offer said the same about the full time process. This is a recent thing and it'll take a while for their reputation to catch up. (I have found that difficulty of interviews proxies really well with engineer quality, for whatever reason. I know that irks many people in the industry).
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