

Ask HN: Minority Report with NSA data?  - klasdfakaf

Just a thought experiment. Can we prevent crimes from happening with NSA backed data? Can we use AI to predict the actions of individuals and then take action before they do? Like using browser history patterns and linking it with suspicious phone calls and online posts etc.
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w_t_payne
In a sense, yes, but it will not look like the highly accurate oracle that the
film presents.

What you will be able to do is to, for example, rank people by how similar
they are to specific examples.

Say, for example, you were a dictator that wanted to cement his authority on
the nation.

You could rank your entire population by how similar their behaviour appears
to be to known dissidents, and then implement strategic discrimination based
on that ranking: targeted imprisonment, punitive taxation, barring from
positions of power & property ownership etc... etc...

