Why Tech Will Never Be Able to Predict the Next Mass Shooting

Following the horrific mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton over the weekend, President Trump has called on private enterprises, particularly social media companies, to develop new tools for surfacing "red flags" that could help identify violent shooters before they act. Trump says these tools could enable the government to act earlier to prevent mass casualties. With the current state of AI technology and the ongoing negligence of social media platforms to protect human life, this simply isn't a feasible idea. Predictive algorithms are hard to make. For simple, basic algorithms to make predictions, they need a lot of data.