How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Public Safety

Written by KOVA Corp

Artificial intelligence is one of the most exciting concepts in our world today, whether it’s in the fanciful flights of science fiction or in our day-to-day lives. The idea of a vastly intelligent computerized system taking over many of the tasks that humans are responsible for now can be cast as a disturbing one in literature, but in the real world it can actually improve our lives immensely.

This is doubly true in the world of public safety. There was a time when it would’ve been impossible to imagine technology taking over some of the dangerous tasks that public safety workers have to deal with every day, but that time is upon us. Here are some of the ways that AI has affected and changed public safety and law enforcement.

Robotic Bomb Detection and Deactivation

One of the most direct ways that AI has become useful to public safety is in the detection and deactivation of explosive devices and materials.

It’s frightening to imagine the risk to human life that used to exist before robots were employed to go into a situation involving a bomb or other kind of explosive device and disable them. Thanks to this technology, many lives have been saved, both in terms of the general public and the brave public safety workers who were once directly in harm’s way.

Drones

However controversial the subject of drone use has become in the political arena, the fact remains that in terms of surveillance, drones have been a revolutionary innovation.

Not only are drones far easier to deploy than the traditional methods of surveillance, but they’re harder to detect, and their ability to maneuver quickly is invaluable.

A drone can soar to great heights or close in tightly, allowing it to gather information on a much wider scale than traditional surveillance ever could. And it’s worth noting that, should a drone be detected and eliminated by those under surveillance, the only damage is financial. The lives of public safety workers aren’t in any danger if a drone is lost.

Social Media Scanning

Everyone, it seems, has a Facebook or Twitter account, and that unfortunately goes for the bad guys, too. Many of us have seen the news stories of terrorist organizations like ISIS using social media to recruit new members and send messages to far-flung cells.

In the age of AI, those social media posts and messages can be monitored and parsed for dangerous or suspicious words or phrases, allowing public safety and law enforcement agencies to thwart potential attacks before they happen. There can be little better argument for the use of AI than the fact that lives have been saved from terror attacks.

But that’s not all that these new AI monitoring systems can do. They can also keep an eye on individuals who may be vulnerable to radicalization by dangerous organizations, monitoring their communications and social media posts to make sure that they aren’t becoming a threat to those around them.

As we mentioned above with drones, this is a somewhat controversial process due to concerns about invasion of privacy, but again, it’s difficult to argue the point that AI has made it easier than ever for law enforcement agencies to monitor possible activity by dangerous individuals or organizations and save lives.

A New Frontier: Interrogation

There’s been an interesting development in recent AI technology that could be put into wider use in the near future all over the world, and its name is Brad.

In the Netherlands, researchers have created a chatbot (the aforementioned Brad) who can detect possible deception in the interrogation of a suspect using a complex system of algorithms and speech analysis.

It’s a very nascent technology, but imagine a police interrogation being conducted via AI while actual law enforcement officers are in the field following up on the information that a machine like Brad can elicit from a suspect.

For more of what the future holds for public safety, read our post “Where is Public Safety Software Headed?

Is Your Organization Ready to Optimize their Public Safety Systems?

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