In Cathy O’Neil’s fourth chapter of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” she outlines, primarily, the issue of crime-based WMDs, focusing on one in particular called PredPol. She mentions how PredPol and other crime-based models will automatically begin to target areas stricken by poverty as crimes are committed much more often in these areas, with the major caveat being that while these crimes are endemic, they are largely victimless. O’Neil touches on some of the harder-hitting moral questions that come about from this, but it is my feeling that she leaves some of the moral questions as implications for the reading to ponder. There are many, such as, how one can assign a value to a crime (as is needed for a model), and which crimes can be deemed victimless or not (and even what values can be placed upon this). Questions liked these are almost never answered in a way that benefits everyone, but of course, the method that must answer these questions is the one put in place to predict crime. O’Neil has a tremendous point in pointing out not on the focus on the people in poverty that are affected, but the flip-side of the rich banker-types that actually would benefit from this. A system like this that targets crimes committed in near-broad daylight, are very different from those committed in board rooms (which one is more victimless?). This point hit me particularly hard, as I then had to question what kind of system would instead focus on non-victimless crime, violent or otherwise. Such a system would, of course, be more interesting to police forces nationwide, victimless crime is not something that should be tracked down and stopped from a predictive model standpoint. Whereas crimes harmful to others, no matter what level, should be a primary focus. I was very impressed with the quality of the moral questions regarding WMD that were brought up in this chapter.
