Researchers Want to Use AI to 'Predict' When Crimes Are Gang-Related

Researchers are using predictive artificial intelligence to help police officers classify crimes and determine whether they are gang-related. Jeffrey Brantingham, a University of California at Los Angeles anthropology professor and pioneer in the field of predictive policing, presented research earlier this year that uses a neural network to predict if crimes are gang-related. The ultimate goal, Brantingham's team writes in their paper, is "to automatically classify gang-related crimes where some crucial pieces of crime information are not currently available or are missing." Titled "Partially Generative Neural Networks for Gang Crime Classification," the paper is the first from a research team Brantingham leads at the University of Southern California's Center for Artificial Intelligence and Society (CAIS). Bratingham's team is studying "Spatio-Temporal Game Theory & Real-Time Machine Learning for Adversarial Groups," with a focus on countering extremism.