Prominent thinkers in the fields of artificial intelligence say that predictive policing tools are not only'useless,' but may be helping to drive mass incarceration. In a letter published earlier this month the experts, from MIT, Harvard, Princeton, NYU, UC Berkeley and Columbia spoke out on the topic in an unprecedented showing of skepticism toward the technology. 'When it comes to predicting violence, risk assessments offer more magical thinking than helpful forecasting,' wrote AI experts Chelsea Barabas, Karthik Dinakar and Colin Doyle in a New York Times op-ed. Both police and judges have relied on algorithms to predict crime and recidivism. But, experts warn it could have major consequences.