The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Topic started by: rangerrebew on June 24, 2018, 02:21:07 pm
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Can Artificial Intelligence Help Stop School Shootings?
Some researchers believe it could help predict student violence. Others worry about unintended consequences
By Randy Rieland
June 22, 2018
For all their stunning frequency, school shootings remain a confounding horror.
Not only is there little consensus on how to stop them—with suggestions ranging from restricting gun access to arming teachers—but there’s even less certainty about why a student would open fire on his classmates.
Now, some scientists are starting to explore if artificial intelligence (AI) could help find answers. The idea is that algorithms might be able to better analyze data related to school shootings, and perhaps even identify patterns in student language or behavior that could foreshadow school violence. The research is still in its early stages, and the prospect of using machines to predict who might become a school shooter raises privacy issues and other ethical questions associated with any kind of profiling, particularly since the process would involve children. The goal, though, is to see if the analytical power of intelligent machines can provide more clarity to tragedies too often consumed in a swirl of high emotions and political rhetoric.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/can-artificial-intelligence-help-stop-school-shootings-180969288/#LJ5EjPGIBz6Oi6vx.99 (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/can-artificial-intelligence-help-stop-school-shootings-180969288/#LJ5EjPGIBz6Oi6vx.99)
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"Ours is an age which is proud of machines that think, and suspicious of any man who tries to."
Howard Mumford Jones
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AI likely has quite a few applications of this nature.
All of those recently released JFK/CIA/FBI records have been entered into AI. Potentially, something could be discovered. Obviously, one would want to keep a close eye on the situation.
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I hate to say it, but this sounds like it’s verging on P.K. Dick’s story Minority Report.
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I hate to say it, but this sounds like it’s verging on P.K. Dick’s story Minority Report.
That way the star chamber folks can decide who the cool kids are even before it matters.