Anchorage Police Department: AI-Generated Police Reports Don’t Save Time
from the the-time-saving-tech-that-isn't dept
The Anchorage Police Department (APD) has concluded its three-month trial of Axon’s Draft One, an AI system that uses audio from body-worn cameras to write narrative police reports for officers—and has decided not to retain the technology. Axon touts this technology as “force multiplying,” claiming it cuts in half the amount of time officers usually spend writing reports—but APD disagrees.
The APD deputy chief told Alaska Public Media, “We were hoping that it would be providing significant time savings for our officers, but we did not find that to be the case.” The deputy chief flagged that the time it took officers to review reports cut into the time savings from generating the report. The software translates the audio into narrative, and officers are expected to read through the report carefully to edit it, add details, and verify it for authenticity. Moreover, because the technology relies on audio from body-worn cameras, it often misses visual components of the story that the officer then has to add themselves. “So if they saw something but didn’t say it, of course, the body cam isn’t going to know that,” the deputy chief continued.
The Anchorage Police Department is not alone in claiming that Draft One is not a time saving device for officers. A new study into police using AI to write police reports, which specifically tested Axon’s Draft One, found that AI-assisted report-writing offered no real time-savings advantage.
This news comes on the heels of policymakers and prosecutors casting doubt on the utility or accuracy of AI-created police reports. In Utah, a pending state bill seeks to make it mandatory for departments to disclose when reports have been written by AI. In King County, Washington, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has directed officers not to use any AI tools to write narrative reports.
In an era where companies that sell technology to police departments profit handsomely and have marketing teams to match, it can seem like there is an endless stream of press releases and local news stories about police acquiring some new and supposedly revolutionary piece of tech. But what we don’t usually get to see is how many times departments decide that technology is costly, flawed, or lacks utility. As the future of AI-generated police reports rightly remains hotly contested, it’s important to pierce the veil of corporate propaganda and see when and if police departments actually find these costly bits of tech useless or impractical.
Originally posted to the EFF Deeplinks blog.
Filed Under: ai, anchorage, anchorage pd, draft one, paperwork, police
Companies: axon
Comments on “Anchorage Police Department: AI-Generated Police Reports Don’t Save Time”
You could’ve literally asked ChatGPT this and it’d already have saved you more time than this study would have.
Maybe don’t involve AI in police-work.
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I agree
So, a technology that doesn’t actually understand the inputs it receives, nor understands its own outputs, can’t be relied on to write up police reports?
Quelle Surprise. (Mais non)
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To be fair, neither can the cops.
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It would be kind of amusing if the A.I. deduced and reported on what really happened, and the lack of time savings is because the officers had to go in and remove anything incriminating to themselves.
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All too true, all too often.
Well, there’s an obvious solution to THIS problem…
If you see something, say something!
It’s pretty much what companies are experiencing with AI, beyond the marketing (and the “we need what other companies need”), error/bugs (aka “hallucinations”) are frustrating and destroying what companies have taken decades to build (like customers trust) and may take an infinite amount of time to fix.
“But they get better every day” is not enough when AI still struggle to make basic accounting, when the cost of training is tenfold what an human is paid to do the same job.
If I mattered at all, this what I’d say to AI developers
Dear Sam (imma call you Sam, cuz I don’t respect you) and all AI companies,
Your products are about as efficient and effective as DOGE. If you actually cared about people, you would be honest about the fact that your products are unreliable and any time saved with them is lost to mundane jobs like proofreading because you have yet to solve hallucinations (among other issues). There is nothing good, helpful, or moral about the ways in which you are creating and selling AI products. You are simply using hype and clout to force these poorly working AI programs on people, and for most of us, they are god damned useless. I’m excited about the prospect of AI, but the way you assholes are handling things, I’m feeling like I should not be expecting much.
Disrespectfully,
Maura
PS: hyper scaling will not bring us to AGI.