In the article “You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot and Sooner than You Think,” Kevin Drum warns that extreme unemployment is probable within the next forty years. He begins his argument by placing all jobs into four categories: routine physical, routine cognitive, nonroutine physical, and nonroutine cognitive. Many leaders in the field are projecting the extinction of routine jobs, with nonroutine jobs being the next victims. For example, the full automation of the police force, a nonroutine field, is estimated to take place within forty years. This is unlikely because the American public and the judicial system will not allow it to occur. However, AI will highly augment the police force, which in turn will become more effective and efficient in combating crime. Robotics and AI will combine to create the ultimate RoboCop that every police officer wants by their side and behind the scenes.
This RoboCop will essentially process and analyze biometric evidence in real-time and quickly narrow down a list of possible suspects from the data collected. The need for such expedited analysis is found in the report “Forensic Testing Turnaround Times In 50 States.” Its findings brought to light the massive delays in the processing of forensic evidence. The report highlighted the Department of Justice’s discovery that as of 2005, forensics labs across the country were backlogged 24% to 40% for more than 30 days. Furthermore, the average timeframe to process and complete forensic testing was 56 to 169 days.
RoboCop will alleviate, possibly even eliminate, the stress on these labs. For example, police will complete projectile and blood spatter analysis with remarkable accuracy and in a matter of minutes, pinpointing the positioning of the victim and perpetrator during a hypothetical attack. This data will then transmit automatically to the police department’s databases for further examination, as well as to the prosecution and defense teams for trial preparation. Thanks to the transfer of information from collection to the legal teams, human error and its role in ‘thrown out cases’ will become a thing of the past.
Another distant memory will be criminals hiding in the shadows because facial, voice, gait, and vehicle recognition will aid in their capture. Security has become big business and we have seen numerous private companies created to develop this technology across the world. In a recent study done by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, state-of-the-art facial recognition algorithms performed with as much accuracy as highly trained forensic professionals. China, as the leader of the pack in AI, is currently making some of the biggest strides in this sector of technology. Their security market is valued well into the billions of dollars. Much of that money is invested in perfecting algorithms for face, voice, and gait recognition, as well as vehicle tracking and analysis. They have begun using this in a law enforcement setting with noteworthy results. Ultimately, the Chinese have become the guinea pigs and the world’s primary example as this technology is perfected and implemented.
China has most notably broken ground in the realm of facial recognition by using eye glasses equipped with facial recognition software to arrest known fugitives. RoboCop will also have this technology installed. Even more impressive than the prospect of such a tool is that the government claims that the algorithms are not affected by crowded conditions, brightness, skin tones, profile captures, or if the subject’s head is lowered. However, Paul Mozur of the New York Times believes there is still much work to do. For example, the facial recognition glasses require that a person remain still for a few seconds to allow for the capture of their image. Due to this drawback, the primary use for the glasses has been to catch people using fake identification while traveling through main transit points. This kind of technology was only discussed in science fiction less than ten years ago, whereas now it is a reality. Soon, RoboCop will not need that momentary pause to deduce the identity of criminals and suspects.
AI will further aid investigators in conducting suspect and witness interviews with unprecedented accuracy in lie detection. This will largely be due to its ability to process micro-expressions, posture, speech patterns and voice frequency. According to University of Maryland researcher Bharat Singh, “We could be just three to four years away from an AI that detects deception flawlessly by reading the emotions behind human expressions.” To his point, a system known as Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real-Time or AVATAR is currently being tested at our border crossings to detect deceit. The system has a current success rate of 60% to 80% in “detecting changes in the eyes, voice, gestures and posture to determine potential risk.” Another system known as the Deception Analysis and Reasoning Engine or DARE, is being trained to analyze human micro-expressions and audio frequency to determine the honesty of a given subject. Once we are able to master this technology and morph it with advanced robotics, we will have the ability to analyze suspects in real time with absolute certainty of the data’s accuracy.
With the prospects of this technology, there comes fear and excitement. Many innocent civilians fear the infringement of their rights, such as the capture of their images for storage and use in facial recognition. However, facial recognition and analyses in this capacity will continue to increase fugitive capture. Closely related to this argument is that the violation of privacy while out in public will cause unrest. However, in China, the thought of being observed while out in public has already reduced petty crimes.
There is also a fear that the use of behavior analyses would be a violation of rights under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. However, through this technology, the increased reliability of confessions and reconstructed events from witness statements will ensure false convictions are virtually non-existent. No longer will criminals deceive their way back out into the populace, placing us all in danger. Fugitives will have nowhere to hide, crimes will decrease, and criminals will be properly incarcerated. It is likely that local and international criminals will fear RoboCop and the human police officer, but there is no reason for innocent civilians to fear them. The idea that AI will take most of our jobs is foreseeable. However, there are certain professions that will benefit greatly from human and machine partnerships, most notably the police force.
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Virnisha Seeger is a US Represented contributor and student at Pikes Peak State College.
