this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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The Ministry of Justice is developing a system that aims to ‘predict’ who will commit murder, as part of a “data science” project using sensitive personal data on hundreds of thousands of people.

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[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 19 points 6 days ago

Why are they rebooting "Minority Report?" The Tom Cruise version was excellent, we don't need a new one.

[–] suite403@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago

Thought crimes. Neat.

[–] b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Is it gonna be a list of all the police and military?

[–] ILoveUnions@lemmy.world 23 points 6 days ago

No silly, not after they input race.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 17 points 6 days ago (3 children)

So what's the plan after that? You can't arrest people until after they commit the crime. Otherwise it gets confusing.

The UK isn't the US, the government can't just do whatever it wants and get away with it.

[–] febra@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Stop falling for the liberal trap that laws and bureaucracy will somehow magically save you from fascism. It won't. This is just the start. They're slowly warming you all up to it until it's going to be too late. There's no such thing as "This can't happen here!". It definitely can, and it definitely will if you don't organise and stop it.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk -3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I've read through the entire article and I can't find anywhere where it says that they will actually be acting in the data. It also says in the article that this project was started by the conservatives not labour so again I don't necessarily think there's cause for concern right now. Also the fact the government even responded to the freedom of information request seems to suggest that it isn't actually a secret project.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Shit like that needs to be stopped while it's just someone's wild wet dreams. When it will become solid plans with budget and deadlines, it will already be too late

[–] noughtnaut@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

It would be hilarious to see random civilians being casually followed by a policeman (policeperson?), overtly and cheerfully "nah mate, you haven't done a thing. I'm just here to watch. For now. Carry on."

[–] pineapplepizza@lemm.ee 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] echodot@feddit.uk -2 points 6 days ago

Aha the "it might happen" argument, used to justify pretty much any amount of pearl clutching that one feels is necessary.

I'm not saying it's impossible but just saying it might happen and then providing no actual evidence as to why that might happen doesn't really constitute an argument. We might have super intelligent AI by next month, but we probably won't so I'm not going to worry about it.

[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 113 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Reminder to watch Minority Report again... I don't even remember whether that movie was any good or not

[–] Kirp123@lemmy.world 49 points 1 week ago

Can't believe that movie is looking to become a reality in my lifetime.

[–] carl_dungeon@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago

It’s great!

[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 109 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is Tom Cruise going to run the program?

Call it Minority Report

[–] aCosmicWave@lemm.ee 59 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Because they will inevitably target minorities?

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

It's just institutional racism with extra steps

[–] whiskeytango@lemm.ee 12 points 1 week ago
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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 87 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hey, remember when pre-musk twitter had to turn off their extremism automod for republican politicians because they were constantly spewing the same patterns of extremist content that actual ISIS-supporting accounts were?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

[–] Tryenjer@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not superstitious, but I'm starting to think that the 30s are cursed, the closer we get to them the worse Europe gets.

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[–] gedhrel@lemmy.world 81 points 1 week ago (2 children)

570 recorded homicides between March 2023 and 2024.

Data on "hundreds of thousands" of people can't provide the distinguishing markers to even have a stab at this.

It can reliably predict when people are black, though.

[–] funkajunk@lemm.ee 40 points 1 week ago (4 children)

It can predict blackness with up to 63% accuracy!

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[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 80 points 1 week ago

And it will say people of lower economic classes and foreign origin are the biggest risk. Will action be taken to help these people? Nah. This is just going to be a technological excuse for some good ol' repression.

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 69 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Precrime will have had been here?

[–] noughtnaut@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Precrime wioll haven be here.

Perhaps this is all just highly refined British humour?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term “Future Perfect” has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 57 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Great—let’s test it on politicians and law enforcement first.

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[–] FriendBesto@lemmy.ml 54 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Oh boy! ...Here we go, dropping a new Dystopia again!

So... What happens when it is wrong?

[–] WordBox@lemmy.world 36 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We find out the guy running the tool has been manipulating it and is the murderer.

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[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 1 week ago

It's the minority report wtf

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 52 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Didn't they try this in Florida and it basically became officers harassing the fuck out of a teenage kid and his mom at all hours of the night?

E: yeah, fuck this shit.

[–] _lilith@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

hey lets feed the guessing machine crime data generated from policing by a bunch of racist ass cops. No way will the resulting "predictions" be racist

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[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Be ready to go to jail for shit you never did, and then be forced to watch the thing you never did for your entire sentence. What do you think you'll do when you are released?

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're assuming they'll ever release you.

[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

"I'm sorry; we predicted that, if we were to release you now, you'll murder someone."

[–] gedhrel@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

That's actually the idea. It's not general precrime, it's a decision support tool for predicting recidivism when deciding parole cases.

That doesn't mean it's not on decidedly shonky ground statistically speaking.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago

This will only dehumanize and discriminate people that enjoy drugs or have been kicked down by society. It will never catch the people that are actual killers. The only ones that can be predicted are those kids in gangs with their machetes. But those are all a risk already.

I wonder if it will flag a lack of social care by the government as possible factor. Lmao.

[–] AstroLightz@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

Getting closer to PSYCHO-PASS

[–] bruhduh@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (7 children)
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