Amazon uses a predictive algorithm to suggest items to buy, based on a customer's previous purchases and viewing history. Facebook's suggested friends feature predicts who users might know but aren't connected with online which is fine in the no so serious online
world but predictive algorithms are now being used in the more serious real world to advise on possible future outcomes.
Almost a third of the UK's police forces are also using predictive algorithms to fight crime and at least 53 councils are using computer models to detect problems from traffic management to benefits sanctions before they happen, according to new research by Cardiff University.
Users say that these algorithms mean problems can be predicted and therefore prevented which sounds dangerously like profiling to me and we have been there before and it was abandoned as unworkable.
Bristol City Council have been using it for years and have a database and a set of rules based on benefits, school attendance, crime, homelessness, teenage pregnancy and mental health to predict which children could suffer from domestic violence or sexual abuse and who then receives the extra support.
Kent Police are using a predictive algorithm to help decide which cases to follow up with further investigation based on historical information.
Apart from the large amount of information collected about a person to be able to derive an accurate profile, it has echoes of The Minority Report where computers advise the Police to arrest suspects prior to any crime being committed.
That the Police, or Council, would ignore a warning issued from a Computer regarding a person based on events that have not yet happened may not yet be so worrisome but will soon be as it becomes more and more influential in the hands of those who make the decisions.
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