How artificial intelligence is changing the reports US police write
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O fficer Wendy Venegas spoke softly in Spanish to the 14-year-old standing on the side of a narrow residential road in East Palo Alto. The girl’s face was puffy from crying as she quietly explained what had happened.
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The girl said her father had caught her and her boyfriend “doing stuff” that morning, and her dad had either struck or pushed the boy, Venegas later explained. Now, the police had arrived to interview all three of them. So far, this was all standard procedure.
But when it came time to turn this incident into a report, Venegas would have help from a new assistant: a cutting-edge artificial intelligence tool called Draft One.
East Palo Alto, a small working-class city that can feel a world away from its Silicon Valley neighbors, is among a handful of California departments, including Campbell, San Mateo, Bishop and Fresno, that have started to use or test the AI-powered software developed by Axon, an industry leader in body cameras and tasers. Axon said the program can help officers produce more objective reports in less time. But as more agencies adopt these kinds of tools, some experts wonder if they give artificial intelligence too big a part in the criminal justice system.
