Contemporary policing is still a way off from the android officers of science fiction, no matter how captivating the latest dancing robot videos are. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are already all around us, though, and accelerating into all aspects of society at a pace that has raised concerns with many of the world’s leading technologists. It is easy to get caught up in fantastic visions and doomsday predictions, however, and miss out on quick wins for the policing profession that already exist.
In the near term, artificial intelligence functionality like generative AI, large language models, and machine learning algorithms have great potential to deliver better public safety outcomes without solving the Skynet problem.1 Policing can leverage these technologies to deliver better public safety outcomes while society wrestles with the long-term questions.
