FC: New "Coplink" AI brought online to help track sniper, from NYT

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---
        
From: "Danny Yavuzkurt" <ayavuzk () fas harvard edu>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: New AI dubbed 'Coplink' brought online - helps link sniper 
killings, but worries some
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 06:27:22 -0500


Declan - something of interest to all FC and Politech readers...

>From the NYT today:
"An Electronic Cop That Plays Hunches"

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/02/arts/02COPL.html

(unknown why they put this technology story in the arts section - whoops..)

Now this is some interesting stuff.  Seems the head of AI at the University
of Arizona, a Dr. Hsinchun Chen (who formerly worked on 'knowledge
management issues' for the DoD and CIA) has been working since 1997 on a
system he calls "Google for law enforcement" to link up disparate police
crime databases into a coherent whole, overseen by an AI he calls, not too
imaginatively, 'Coplink'.  Article says it wasn't even fully online when the
sniper killings were occuring, but it is already being used to link earlier
killings to the known cases (we *have* seen many more killings previously
thought to be unrelated coming to light in recent days).

Article goes on to reassure readers that 'the Coplink files are all public
records' and that it isn't 'classified or secret' data.  However, Dempsey of
the CDT worries about extending the AI's reach to disparate police databases
that cover 'many different types of crimes' - or even to non-police DBs.
However, the article did specify that Tucson Police Lt. Jenny Schroeder
'noted John Mohammed's history of domestic violence,' thus it may be
implying that this is already the case.

What worries me is not so much the linking of nationwide law enforcement
databases - this kind of thing has been going on for a long time, and some
of the latest fruits of law enforcement information-sharing include, say,
the National Instant Check System for firearms purchases (it will be
interesting to see whether this system was invoked, say, when Mohammed
bought the gun he allegedly used in the sniper killings), and the background
check system that is used in some states for people in 'sensitive positions'
(including, now, many educators).  What worries me is the possibility that
the information in the databases will be *proactively* analyzed, say, for
'criminal tendencies' and for statistical correlations between prior
infractions and possible future crimes.  The world of Minority Report could
become a reality, not by the fanciful use of some albinos in a tank of goo,
but by something as simple - and error-prone - as a data-mining proto-AI
system, which will be in effect an 'Electronic Cop That Plays Hunches,' as
the article is titled.  Playing some of those hunches might put innocent
people under surveillance or suspicion of crimes they have not yet
committed, or are suspected of having committed (but which 'might not have
been put in the system yet', a great excuse for illegal search and
seizure...

Now all that remains, I suppose, is to give this system (which, they are
already implying, is a computer and thus can do no wrong) the power to issue
automatic search and arrest warrants, wiretap authorizations, etc.. and,
since it will likely issue too many of these for humans to individually
consider and catalogue, perhaps it will be given the proactive judicial
authority to carry these out itself.  Though we still need meatspace agents
to break down doors (at least until people like Rodney A. Brooks, who is
mysteriously both the head of the AI lab at MIT *and* the proprietor of a
company dubbed, plagiaristically, iRobot, get their act together.. they've
already made 'bots to search caves in Afghanistan..), I'm sure it would be
easy as pie to give Coplink access to the FBI's Carnivore software and CALEA
surveillance network capabilities, and let it roam freely through
cyberspace, searching 'suspects' email, surreptitiously gaining access to
their computers and installing Magic Lantern, what have you...

If this system is used merely to link existing cops' databases, and give
real humans a few tips to work with that might solve unsolved cases, it
raises enough privacy and Fourth Amendment issues right there.  But if it,
as I suspect, is being geared up for even more powerful datamining and
'hunch' capabilities, well, we're heading for a Skynet-type situation here,
aren't we?.. for now, I'm sure people are still suspicious enough of the
buggy present-day AI in general to keep this on a short leash, but as its
processing power and storage grow, I'm sure it'll start being pretty darn
accurate, scarily accurate, possibly (it's already given the cops some leads
they weren't considering).. and then, well, why not go for 'more of a good
thing'?.. how about giving AIs the ability to automatically summon people to
computerized interrogation stations where they could be pumped for knowledge
of crimes they are suspected of being linked to?.. easy enough to put
together an A/V recording system, a speech synthesizer to ask the questions
in whatever language is required, easy enough to network it, perhaps even
with encrypted wireless, to the rest of the system, to get real-time
evidence collection, etc.. give it the power to deliver Miranda warnings,
and people might just feel it was as legal as a cop showing up on your
doorstep and doing the same.  Only much, much more widespread, with the
ability to instantly match up and compare different interviews, witnesses,
etc.  Or, getting deeper and deeper into 'what-if' paranoia, we could see
mass-produced MEMS (memory encoding response) scanners - the so-called 'mind
readers' the government spooks are developing - being integrated into such a
hypothetical AI's abilities.  Add these to the 'interview stations,' and
you'd get lots and lots of supposedly accurate data as fast as you wanted
it..

Hell, we could eventually even see a 'flawless' AI replacing the executive
and judicial systems entirely, on the sci-fi end of things!.. Robocop plus
the Terminator plus Judge Dredd.. *rolls eyes*..

So, where do we draw the line?.. when is AI-assisted police work too much of
a good thing?.. only time will tell.. for now, at least, the price and dicey
chances of success will keep most PDs from adopting Coplink - it costs
'anywhere from $40,000 to over $200,000', depending on a variety of factors,
and probably most officers will be loath to entrust the thinking portion of
cop work - the part that they get the greatest credit for - being performed
by.. a *MACHINE*.  But once it gets more effective and widely accepted, the
sky's the limit.. after all, as Brooks of iRobot says, "There are enormous
amounts of facts and connections out there, more than can be held in any one
person's mind," he added. "Just like with gene patterns, it's much too
complex for someone to remember it all."  So, as we are shoehorned into
accepting greater and greater data-collection abilities for law enforcement
and domestic 'homeland security' departments, the amount of information can
only grow, and eventually it will be literally impossible to do *any* LE
database work without the help of a so-called AI like this.. even if right
now it's just a 'Google for law enforcement,' I'm sure its abilities, and
thus the trust we place in it, and those who administer it, will only
increase.  And I'm pretty worried about that.


Danny



Article text follows, for those who don't have NYT Online accounts (though
they're free)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

"An Electronic Cop That Plays Hunches

By MINDY SINK



TUCSON, Oct. 28 - Officials building a case against the Washington-area
sniper suspects are using a new investigative tool to help trace their
movements across the country. It is an Internet-based system called Coplink,
developed at an artificial intelligence laboratory here, that allows police
departments to establish links quickly among their own files and to those of
other departments.

During the 21 days in which snipers terrorized the area, investigators used
everything from specialized ballistics testing to geographic and criminal
profiling to radio and television announcements to track them down. Then, in
what turned out to be the 11th hour of the pursuit, they finally reached out
to Coplink. As it turned out, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo were arrested
before it was fully installed, but now the post-arrest task force is using
the system to help connect the dots.

All of the information that was collected - including that from other
computer database systems like the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
Rapidstart - is now being downloaded into the Coplink database so that the
accumulated data can be compared, said Robert Griffin, president of
Knowledge Computing Corporation of Tucson, which is turning the prototype in
the laboratory into a commercial product. "The more data you get, the better
Coplink works," he said.

Coplink was designed by Hsinchun Chen, the director of the Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Arizona. "It's the Google for
law enforcement," he said, referring to a speedy popular Internet search
engine that, given a couple of words, can find an array of related Web
sites. "Things that a human can do intuitively we are getting the computer
to do, too."

During the sniper investigation, which generated hundreds of thousands of
tips, the number of potential clues to assimilate was daunting. "We were
mobilizing a massive effort," said Lt. Mitch Cunningham of the Montgomery
County police. "We had tactile resources, the military, federal, state and
local law enforcement agencies and information technology using several
products where each one of these had a role." So when the National Institute
of Justice, the Justice Department's research and development arm, suggested
that the sniper task force try Coplink, the officials agreed.

[...]




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------