China Turns to Robotic Policing

In the 2011 CBS show Person of Interest, reclusive computer scientist Harold Finch builds an artificial intelligence system called "the Machine" that compiles and analyzes troves of data to predict murders. Finch and his henchman, John, then chase down the perpetrator and prevent the crime. Public security officials in the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang, it turns out, are turning that fiction into fact. An enormous data-driven program that pulls from health records, financials, vehicle checkpoints and police reports to identify individuals likely to commit crimes in China's politically sensitive northwest region has just been revealed. Launched in 2016, the "big data" policing initiative in Xinjiang is one of many law enforcement initiatives the country is launching, drawing on its growing capabilities in the fields of AI and robotics. While a number of countries … boast the technological capabilities China is integrating into law enforcement, political considerations make it difficult for these countries to follow suit.