Trump Asks Social Media Companies To Develop Pre-Crime Algorithms (theverge.com) 333
AmiMoJo shares a report from The Verge: After two recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump said his administration would ask social media companies to develop tools that could detect potential mass shooters. While delivering a speech on the recent violence, Trump said "we must do a better job of identifying and acting on early warning signs," and he suggested social media companies could develop new ways of catching "red flags." While the president did not specify what those "tools" might look like, Trump seemed to be suggesting that companies could use predictive software to single out potential shooters based on their activity on a platform. Crucially, this would mean taking action before a person commits violent crimes. Data-mining tools are in wide use, but creating a detection system for violence would inevitably raise a host of privacy and accountability issues.
He thought Minority Report was real and worked (Score:4, Insightful)
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Somebody needs to tell him that wasn't real and it didn't work. Between saying he'll pardon former IL governor Blagoivich (?), a true corrupt politician, and this - he's definitely trying to distract the news media from the bad PR of him with the shootings.
He likely knows its bullshit. Bullshit is his thing. He knows that if he actually does his fucking job and asks for say the background check loophole to be closed he may lose some votes, so instead he comes up with some bullshit, and do you know what happens if they do develop these algorithms? Eventually they get used by law enforcement, which will, they think eventually be used by their guys. Of course, just like real law enforcement, political considerations will be inserted. If Trump or his like ar
Re:He thought Minority Report was real and worked (Score:5, Insightful)
Continue the analogy, and well the most serious crime to a republican is voting for a democrat. You can use these nifty new algorithms that they have spent hundreds of millions developing to make the absolute most special voting districts ever, and maybe even do some purely "random" purges of the voting roll and other things where you think you need a few more percent.
AI methods don't work that way. First, nobody would invent a new algorithm for this. They would use WordNet and other existing feature extraction techniques and standard ML (Machine Llearning) algorithms to see if they could classify posts made by shooters just before incidents from other posts. That would be very difficult as the data set would have to be very biased (as in there is more data on one side/class than another, not whatever you think bias means). Any system trained on such a biased training set would have tons of false positives due to the size of the bias.
Your post is a good example of the kind of hyperbolic behaviour that makes people tired of the press. You took a kernel of truth about the meaning of the word algorithm and began extrapolating continuously in an absurd direction. Either you know nothing about how ML works or you are letting your emotions make a fool out of yourself.
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He knows that if he actually does his fucking job and asks for say the background check loophole to be closed he may lose some votes
Been buying lots of guns for a long time. Still haven't come across this "background check loophole" or the "gun show loophole" know-nothings keep talking about.
Re: He thought Minority Report was real and worked (Score:5, Informative)
I have guns too, but letâ(TM)s not play dumb here. I can go to a local gun show and buy a gun from a private seller - no background check. Itâ(TM)s legal to do so, thatâ(TM)s the loophole.
In my state, Florida, there is also no registration. So, when you sell me that rifle at a local gun show there is no record of the transaction either. All still perfectly legal.
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On the other hand, idiots DO post some really stupid things on social media. I don't have the stats but it wouldn't surprise me at all if most shooters directly state their intent to shoot on social media before heading out. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy when one is making public statements on social media, so it makes perfect sense to pay attention and respond to threats there if they seem credible.
I am not talking about scanning people for some sort of "subtle hints." Like: "Oh look, th
Thought crime (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, idiots DO post some really stupid things on social media. I don't have the stats but it wouldn't surprise me at all if most shooters directly state their intent to shoot on social media before heading out.
Many apparently do. The problem is in
A) Seeing the crazy soon enough to do something about it
B) Getting authorized authorities to do something about in a timely and appropriate manner
C) Respecting civil rights
D) Not arresting people for literal thought crimes
E) Not everyone is stupid enough to post their intent to commit a crime before they actually do it
The problem with trying to stop crimes by monitoring social media is that the false positive rate is astronomical and you will still miss the real crazies routinely. Sometimes the signs of the crazy are only evident after the heinous act has been finished. Sometimes it's impossible to connect the dots in advance. And even if you do connect the dots, thinking of doing something horrible isn't actually a crime nor should it be. Literally every human has thought of committing an act of violence but most of us have a well functioning filter and dismiss the thought.
I am not talking about scanning people for some sort of "subtle hints.
Problem with this is that you get someone doing the monitoring who gets all jumpy about what constitutes red flags and starts sending swat teams after innocent people with opinions they don't like or who says anything the least bit provocative. Or you get racists asshats. You know, the sort of idiot white people who call the cops [usatoday.com] on a black person just because he sat down in a starbucks to wait for a friend. Obviously sometimes things are clear but sometimes they very much are not. Even innocent things can seem sinister when taken out of context. That is exactly why lawyers recommend you do not talk to police.
Oh look this guy just posted that Jesus is coming soon....RED FLAG!!!"/quote.
You just described a huge percentage of the population of christians. How to you plan to sort out the (very few) shooters from the vast majority who are perhaps crazy but definitely peaceful?
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"Not everyone is stupid enough to post their intent to commit a crime before they actually do it."
"Sometimes the signs of the crazy are only evident after the heinous act "
"Sometimes it's impossible to connect the dots in advance. "
All duly noted, but I will submit that there is a lot of handwaving in those statements. The crux of the solution will not be in the identification, but in the response. Instead of sending out a SWAT team, the appropriate action would be to send out a couple agents (with one be
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That kind of thing is a pretty standard part of intelligence operations, and they're fairly successful.
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"Fairly successful"? (Score:3)
That kind of thing is a pretty standard part of intelligence operations, and they're fairly successful.
I'll see your "fairly successful" and raise you "WMDs in Iraq", 9/11, and two wars of adventure in the middle east, with a Patriot Act kicker. Oh and throw in depressingly routine mass shootings [wikipedia.org] across the US. (248 so far in 2019 as I type this)
You really want to start trusting them with this sort of thing? Their track record is not exactly confidence inspiring.
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The plural of anecdote is not data. Also, your anecdotes need a bit of work. "WMDs in Iraq" was likely deliberate misinformation to drum up public support for a war, not a failure of intelligence. The US war in Afghanistan was a political decision based on correct intelligence.
There are certainly better ways to curb gun violence, but since the American voter is unwilling to implement them, sniffing through the stuff idiots post on Twitter is better than illegally eavesdropping on every communication, isn't
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Re:He thought Minority Report was real and worked (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest criminals are in Congress, the military, the presidency... Street criminals might as well be irrelevant. Collectively they can only steal hundreds of millions. The MIC steals trillions.
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Why would he care about bad PR? At this point it's pretty clear that the democrats will never start an impeachment process against him no matter how insane or flat-out evil he acts.
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No, he knows the Senate is a limp noodle and will never go for impeachment, he doesn't give a flying rat's ass what the House does.
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Just when I think Trump can't get anymore evil/stupid....
The quick guide to pre-crime recognition (Score:2, Funny)
Do they post AC on Slashdot more than once a month?
Y) Pre (and probably Post) crime for sure.
N) Astute member of society worthy of award.
There, saved some programmer effort.
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Do they refer to themselves with superlatives? Do they post in virtually every Slashdot thread despite being ignorant on every topic. Do they care more about tribalism than furthering useful discussion?
Imagine a world where StuporKendall didn't post anymore on /. What a fantastic twofer
Thanks! (Score:3, Funny)
See everyone, the algorithm is working perfectly!
My God I am a genius.
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No, he perjured himself under oath.
Since there's been a lot of noise over the issue, could you pick a specific statement and present the evidence that it was knowingly false?
Or were you talking about the Avenatti (who wasn't under oath)? Or were there provably false statements by the accusers?
IT'S THE LYING, YOU LYING FAGGOT.
Jesus. Your right-wingers never do give up. What's next, creationism again? Dudes can marry dudes, get over it.
That he basically ATTEMPTED TO RAPE A CLASSMATE
Several disproved incidents, and one alleged incident, with no corroboration.
without investigation
The FBI has done six. What specific physical evidence do you w
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The only thing the founding fathers would be taken aback by is that we have let things get so bad. They might well wonder if they ought to have taken the time and effort to found this nation at all. If they hadn't, we'd have health care by now, and a lot more curries.
And so it begins . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
He's watched Minority Report and ignored the moral of the story.
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He's watched Minority Report and ignored the moral of the story.
Don't be silly. He only watched the trailer.
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Why? (Score:2, Flamebait)
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The clown knows that media needs a show. Say something outrageous and the media cannot resist the temptation to run it as the top story - because ratings. Do this enough and you starve all others of soundbites.
He may be ignorant, insecure, cowardly, dishonest and self-obsessed, but he is not stupid. On ratings and branding, he is diabolically clever.
So what are we gonna do with them? (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's all well and good, but at some point if we're gonna address this as a mental health issue then we've got to take people's guns away if they turn out to be nuts. Never mind that a large percentage of gun deaths are angry exs, so we've got that to worry about too.
But that's a political non-starter. I hate Bill Clinton with a passion (his Wall Street deregulation that Bush Jr continued is what caused the 2008 crash, he flubbed a chance at single payer because he couldn't go 4 years without nookie and his trade deals wrecked the American middle class) but he was right about one thing, Gun Control is a losing issue. Sure, 97% want background checks, but they don't _vote_ on background checks.
I know why too: community. Gun Nuts form their own community. As a nerd (an Anime Nerd no less) I know damn well what it means to have a community built around an interest. Your entire circle of friends rests on that community. Same thing with Warhammer 40k. Every wonder why you can get somebody to pay $50 bucks for a 3" piece of plastic? Community. You're not threatening to take their guns, you're threatening to take their _friends_
And you know what, Niel De Grass Tyson took a lot of shit for saying this, but mass shootings are still insanely rare. The only reason they're such a big deal is they're sudden, violent and random, meaning we can all see ourselves being a victim. 35,000 Americans will die from treatable illnesses this year. I can scare Americans into thinking they'll be one of the 140 (not 140k, 140) annual mass shooting deaths but for some damn reason nobody blinks at that 35,000 figure.
What I'm saying is this: Drop it. Just Drop it. Focus your energy elsewhere. You're much more likely to die of insulin shock in your 40s because you don't have $3000/mo for $60 worth of the stuff than you are to eat a bullet from some nut job.
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They'd just drive to Vegas (Score:2)
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Re: They'd just drive to Vegas (Score:2, Interesting)
Really, what should the limit be? This is what everyone is talking about and nobody can answer.
How sane, mature, and trained should someone have be to own a rifle that can sling a couple hundred rounds a minute with enough force to penetrate an entire house from a block away, sustainable for as long as it takes to fire all the rounds you can possibly carry on your person.
Can spell own name, 18 and none? You can literally be too dumb to qualify for the US military, unable to pass a driving test, and go buy
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"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic"
-Stalin
It's true no matter who noticed it.
Re:So what are we gonna do with them? (Score:4, Insightful)
The price for having freedom and presumption of innocence is the fact that guilty men may roam free and evil men may do harm before they can be stopped.
But if stopping them means risking the loss of freedom and the punishment of the innocent, then tolerating such men is the cost that we must accept for all the treasures a free society offers.
A saboteur, terrorist, or criminal can only destroy objects and harm lives.
But they are incapable of touching the foundation on which that freedom is founded. Only our fear and paranoia can do that.
Is America still a free country, and it is those wishing to stop it from being so that are wrong?
Or is America a prison state, and I am the one who is wrong?
When it was the small minority so violently against all forms of freedom, I placed the onus on them to leave the country they despised and move to a country more in line with their ideals, like China or North Korea.
When it is the vast majority that is so feverishly against all forms of freedom, perhaps it is us that hold those ideals to heart who do not belong and should leave.
When countries remain diverse, it is easy to find one liken to your way of life.
After they all become the same, where do we go? Where will they go when they finally get what they want and realize they don't actually want it?
Re:So what are we gonna do with them? (Score:4, Informative)
Not only are mass shootings rare, but they're rarer than ever before.
The FBI has been keeping statistics on it since 1976 and there has been an average of 20 mass shootings per year. Every year. That entire time. Yes, I know the media and idiots on twitter like to claim there is a mass murder involving guns every single day of the year, but that isn't the case. There are an average of 20. Period.
Since 1976, the population of the country has roughly doubled.
The number of mass killings has... remained the same.
Meaning that per-capital, mass shootings have been reduced by 50%.
The problem is, people can't wrap their head around the fact that when you have hundreds of millions of people and you have freedom and responsibilities, sometimes bad shit is going to happen. It is inevitable. Unless someone does something really telling and obvious, you are never going to catch someone who is going to do something nuts like this. Because it happens so rarely. If there was a simple motivation and trigger and tell, then it'd be happening way more in the first place. But the fact is -- bat and terrible shit does happen. It just happens.
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According to this, the frequency has not increased but the death toll has: https://www.politico.com/magaz... [politico.com] .
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Convincing people to give up something they want is unlikely to work, compared to convincing them that an alternative is better.
I'm not sure what could be offered to a group of friends that likes to drink and shoot bottles in someone's back yard, but some might be fine with meeting at a range instead. The range would then hold onto the guns, with some subsidized benefit to allowing that (free maintenance/storage/whatever.) Now next time they get into an argument with the McCoys, they won't have their guns t
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If we want to stop shootings, we need to change society.
Re: So what are we gonna do with them? (Score:4, Insightful)
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So, are you suggesting we outlaw propane tanks?
Re: So what are we gonna do with them? (Score:2)
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I don't think that's what leads to these killings. I think it's the devaluing of certain humans. It decreases the revulsion for vile acts.
"dehumanizing the victim makes things simpler
It's like breathing with a respirator
It eases the conscience of even the most conscious
and calculating violator" (M. Franti)
Re: So what are we gonna do with them? (Score:2)
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El Paso Police Dept. in an alternate scenario:
Mom: My son has a gun, I think he's mentally ill, do something.
EPPD: Um....okay, we'll need an address and when we can pick him up.
(later in Police Station):
EPPD: Yer Mom says you are mentally ill and shouldn't have your gun.
Kid: That crazy old bat, how about the time she chased me around the house with a knife.
EPPD: So you are not crazy?
Kid: No, she is, arrest her.
(later in Police Station)
EPPD: Your son says you are the crazy one.
Mom: Are you nuts, he chased me
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Mass shootings are a red herring for both sides, an irrelevant edge case.
What I find staggering is the US has 6 times the firearm related deaths, 3.5 times the homicide rate of the country I live in, and it's not some northern European socialist utopia.
Wouldn't even budge (Score:2, Insightful)
Terrorism (which is what you're describing) doesn't work. There's a YouTuber named Beau of the Fifth Column I rather like, except he's got one thing
Re:Wouldn't even budge (Score:5, Insightful)
what's this nonsense? We've proven in several countries across several decades that an armed populace can give the armed forces of a first world nation a very bad busy time.
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If I wanted to attack bill Gates I certainly wouldn't try to walk up and do it. That would be dumb as shit. Only a crazy person would do that. I'd use drones.
Vietnam and Iraq both proved that you can mount meaningful resistance against a more numerous foe using guerilla tactics. Ironically, the USA is the country that reinvented that kind of war in the modern age, but here you are pretending that it never happened.
Let's pretend that 9/11 was just an Afghan thing even though that's pure bullshit as the bombe
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I'll go you one step further.
What is this "government" you speak of? Would that be the executive branch, Trump, the legislative branch, or AOC's "Squad"? If it ever came to a shooting war, there would not be a government to direct the military, at least not all of it.
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Free hookers for everyone!
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Found the one that doesn't listen to ANY news, left or right.
Surprisingly competent suggestion (Score:3)
Surprisingly competent suggestion from an otherwise pretty tech illiterate administration. IIRC a year or two ago Microsoft was pretty proudly reporting that they screen their cloud storage (and possibly email) for kiddie porn and share their findings with law enforcement. Both perceptual and NLP algorithms are getting to a point where they could extract the data without much (if any) human involvement.
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What you describe is finding illegal activity after it's happened. Not the same as searching for the potential of a future crime. I can tell you exactly what the high and low temperatures in your city were yesterday. I can only give you a little insight into what it's going to be tomorrow. If machine learning can't get something as mechanical as weather right, how do you imagine they will do with irrational meatsacks?
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Sure, but if someone can't stop sending messages about attacking other people or fantasize about violence, perhaps they could use a stern reminder akin to the one Secret Service would give you get if you e.g. credibly threaten the president.
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So you are saying predicting the future is fraught with error. I think Madam Seance down the street from me would beg to differ. She can predict anything you like.
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Detecting known images via hash is a solved problem. Detecting when someone is about to go on a murder spree is not.
If they set that algorithm to work on 8chan it would be flagging every single post. If Facebook deployed it people would spend all day creating fake accounts and trying to trigger evacuations or swattings via algorithm.
Human beings have enough trouble determining when someone is being serious online, especially when they only have text to work with. Image macros aren't much help either, as mos
Not a perfect one... (Score:3)
But it's probably possible to come up with one that can kinda find several potential candidates, and even one that "disarms" em, but that's only possible if you let em post in public social medias where they feel free to post the hell they want in first place.
The scorched earth approach of certain several big corporations will only make a lot harder to see when the stuff is about to happen, as they will be encrypted on some obscure corner of the internet.
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This.
Hunting down these radicals, in all their different disguises, is very much like hunting snakes. Whether it is a cobra, a copperhead, a rattler, or a moccasin, the first thing you want to do is flush them out. Having them curled up, waiting in hiding, doesn't serve the public good.
Now, once they are found, there is a decision about what to do with them. Move them off to their own territory (heh, I agree with white nationalist here. They should be in a country far away. The Antarctica, maybe?) The
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In this case, you probably can avoid the snakes from getting born in first place by countering the propaganda effectively instead of just shouting "snake!" at everyone because it feels good.
"taking action" means investigate a person? (Score:5, Insightful)
... this would mean taking action before a person commits violent crimes ...
You realize "taking action" means investigate, it **does not** mean arrest? If a person is threatening or promoting violence online should there not be an investigation?
people are arrested for crimes they have not comm (Score:2)
people are arrested for crimes they have not committed yet and they get sent to an cryo prison with no court, no trail, no bail, no jury and no attorney
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It depends on the urgency of the situation. When people get swatted the SWAT team doesn't go to investigate. They assume an immediate threat and go in to arrest or kill the suspected shooter.
You can be sure that people will very quickly figure out how to create fake accounts and use them to SWAT their rivals.
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You realize "taking action" means investigate
In what America do you live in? The America I live in "taking action" means sending in SWAT to bust some caps while some unwitting and confused person is scratching their heads.
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You realize "taking action" means investigate
In what America do you live in? The America I live in "taking action" means sending in SWAT to bust some caps while some unwitting and confused person is scratching their heads.
The America that is personally knowledgeable of and familiar with law enforcement from the inside. As opposed to the I heard it on twitter America.
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Hmm...just how would that work? All it takes is a phone call to the police to get an investigation going...with their copious amounts of under-utilized personnel training in predicting when a person is about to commit a major crime:
Neighbor #1: Hello Police? I'd like to report my neighbor, he's nuts and has guns.
Neighbor #2: Oh, hello Mr. Policeman. What's that? No, I assure you I'm totally sane, Neighbor #1 on the other hand is totally nuts, he sticks marshmallows on his car.
Neighbor #1: Oh hello Mr. Polic
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Yeah, I don't understand why people are so against this.
Identifying a potential mass murder allows intervention, whether that's providing emotional support, helping address financial or other issues, validating mental health or possibly even determining a genuine fucking psychopath is about to embark on a murder spree for the lulz and arresting them.
The police in the UK have a role to prevent crime, as well as solve it. Don't the police and/or FBI in the US? The Secret Service pro-actively address potential
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This is nothing more than using technology to send officers to more likely trouble spots than with the likely more error prone human based reports. Its not quite the same but consider our Las Vegas shooter, buying dozens for guns in a "short" amount of time. Legal in many areas but the behavior should have been flagged
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Twitter: Da Polis shooot a'body tha's black, innit
Reality: Police bored shitless interviewing people that posted silly things online
Also reality: Police nonetheless infinitely prefer this to being in a firefight
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Citation needed.
Probably works - mostly (Score:2)
Its probably possible to generate pretty good statistics. The problem is that "pretty good" isn't really good enough for taking someone's rights away. It will also be extremely easy for bias to creep into the algorithm the way it tends to with machine learning based hiring decisions. Prior bias causes a correlation between some attributes and crime - and the ML algorithm uses that data and continues the bias.
I also think some of our leaders may not be happy with the results if the system looks at high le
Sherlock Holmes TV show (Score:4, Interesting)
Far closer than Minority Report is some recent episodes of the Sherlock Holmes TV show. In that case an evil Zuckerberg type is setting up the pre-crime system secretly. It actually appears to work better than seems believable, and the main problem is that he assassinates any detected pre-crime culprits. However in a later episode it is revealed that he may be planting evidence and staging crimes in cases where his prediction was wrong.
Re:Sherlock Holmes TV show (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't it a bit redundant to say evil in evil Zuckerberg type?
Trust In Social Media (Score:5, Interesting)
Or is he trying to find another momentary scape-goat to distract everyone from his own inaction?
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Well, he just says what thinks is most opportune for him at that given moment and doesn't care when it comes back and bites him in the ass. Surely, that can't be a surprise for anyone now.
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He said the second thing because it gives an alternate way out other than increasing gun legislation/restriction.
Or, he said it because it is the only option on the table that will do anything at all. The left is scream "DO SOMETHING", and then get upset when something is presented. SMDH
Priorities (Score:2)
He's in for a big surprise (Score:3)
When his supporters start to get arrested by the dozens!
I have one ... (Score:2)
So
Require Gun Insurance, Like Auto Insurance (Score:3)
The Algorithm Will Flag Trump as Terrorist (Score:2)
Not against background checks, but... (Score:2)
I've yet to see any of these politicians provide any evidence that background checks would have netted any of the nut jobs who went on shooting rampages. And, that's the rub for all these politicians calling for greater gun restrictions: scientific proof the new restrictions would work. Statistical evidence.
For example, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban instituted under President Bill Clinton's administration that was in affect from 1994 to 2004 did nothing to lesson gun violence according several independent
Here's the code (Score:2)
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Re:Can you imagine the HOWLS from GOP faggots... (Score:4, Insightful)
Political science these days boils down to: They're side is evil if they do it; Our side is justified when they do the same thing in our best interests.
That's too complicated still though. It's more like "we just won 2 points in the big game, take another drink!"
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The real solution is to ban social media sites. No more audience, no more shootings. It's the only way to get these insecure little millennial shits to understand their limited place in the world and to behave civilly.
Re:Can you imagine the HOWLS from GOP faggots... (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile, the Las Vegas shooter was in his 60's. But sure, it's those damn "millennials"!
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You're right. We see how much all that paperwork helps the citizens of Chicago, and the other gun controlled cities. But, you go ahead and double down what has continuously been demonstrated to not work, but I have to ask, "Why do you hate science?"
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BREAKING: Chicago and other US states with some trace of gun controls are are right next to states with loose gun laws with which they have no border controls, more on this shocking development at 11.
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This just in, also of course Chicago is a city in the state of Illinois. Hear more at the nitpicker's forum at 11:30.
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Well, if you look at the earlier drafts and writings about the constitution, etc....the well regulated militia WAS the general public.
They wanted the general populace to be armed in case there was a need for them to be gathered into a fighting body at any time.
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Well, if you look at the earlier drafts and writings about the constitution, etc.
That right there is the problem. Most "progressives" hate the U.S. Constitution and the rights contained within because those rights apply equally to everyone, so they do their best to pretend it doesn't exist for people with whom they disagree, or that the parts of it they don't like are too outdated to matter. It's pretty ironic and quite terrifying actually, because history has told us time and again that this sort of thinking is WAY more dangerous than any nutjob with a firearm.
Re:Precrime? Just turn on your TV, another nut. (Score:2)
"All we know is the fact that he walked in here heavily armed with body armor on, in military fatigues ..."
And you are able to conclude his motivation from that?
Re:Precrime? Another nut looking for publicity (Score:3)
Armed Man Walks Into a Springfield, Missouri Walmart and Begins Filming Himself [thetruthaboutguns.com]
Re: Giving away algorithms for free (Score:2)
if account.id.is("@realDonaldTrump") then crime_in_progress();
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No. It demonstrated that over reaction to pre-crime is a really bad idea.
If the plot of the movie was that a pre-cog detected future crimes, and a response team interviewed and counceled the perpetrators so that the crime never happened, the movie would have been fairly boring.
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It's marked Flaimbait.
You bit.