Writing in The Police Chief magazine in 2009, a senior LAPD officer lauded Amazon's ability to "understand the unique groups in their customer base and to characterise their purchasing patterns", which allows the company "not only to anticipate but also to promote or otherwise shape future behaviour". Thus, just as Amazon's algorithms make it possible to predict what books you are likely to buy next, similar algorithms might tell the police how often – and where – certain crimes might happen again. Ever stolen a bicycle? Then you might also be interested in robbing a grocery store.
Here we run into the perennial problem of algorithms: their presumed objectivity and quite real lack of transparency. We can't examine Amazon's algorithms; they are completely opaque and have not been subject to outside scrutiny. Amazon claims, perhaps correctly, that secrecy allows it to stay competitive. But can the same logic be applied to policing? If no one can examine the algorithms – which is likely to be the case as predictive-policing software will be built by private companies – we won't know what biases and discriminatory practices are built into them. And algorithms increasingly dominate many other parts of our legal system; for example, they are also used to predict how likely a certain criminal, once on parole or probation, is to kill or be killed. Developed by a University of Pennsylvania professor, this algorithm has been tested in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington DC. Such probabilistic information can then influence sentencing recommendations and bail amounts, so it's hardly trivial.
This reminds me of the mathematical algorithms bankers used that got them thinking the maths was reality as opposed to reality itself and played some part in the crash. .
Amazon constantly sends me spam e-mails that don't seem that sophisticated to me. It doesn't seem that far fetched that someone who buys one kind of item might well buy another item placed in the same catagory. If you buy heavy metal CDs, it's logical you may buy other CDs in the catagory of "heavy metal" But though they urge me to buy things I already own or may want, they also manage to e-mail me about a lot of stuff I have no interest in. Or stuff that is the type of stuff it's reasonable to assume I may want, but in actuality I don't for whatever reason.
What these algorithms will always fail to account for is that humans are complex creatures prone to random behaviour. Patterns do exist and can have some pedictive utility, but people will always confound expectations. I've done work with offenders and their attitudes and motivations are widely varied. It strikes me there's this belief you get these days that you can reduce human behaviour to mathematical equations produced by a computer. If you've stolen a bicycle, it might be because you were drunk and it seemed funny at the time, it might have been on impulse, it might be because it wasn't locked up and the street seemed deserted and you thought you'd take a chance you'd otherwise be too scared to, you might be a serial bicycle thief, you might be desperate because you owe a loan shark money, you might hate the owner and want to piss them off - the list is endless. On top of that, what happens next will influence behaviour - you might feel guilt and shame and vow never to do such a thing again, you might think being arrested and charged isn't actually that big a deal and be more likely to do it again, it might be an occupational hazard you barely think about, it might be the trigger event where you think it's time to stop pinching stuff and go straight - how the fuck are you supposed to account for all the variables and create something that goes beyond telling you what you already know - that people who steal bicycles are statistically more likely to do other crime but on the other hand might not do other crime?
And of course if you're labelling people as a career criminal in the making, do these twats have an algorithm for the likelihood of creating self-fulfilling prophecies.
An algorithm should also be created to work out how big a twat you are if you think the real world works out as a bunch of reliable mathematical algorithms some egghead dreamed up in an office.
you guys are screwed! 
But to bring a tv series into reality....it's those little quips like the CIA using the drug trade to fund their war on terror etc.
