Philip K Dick is rolling over in his grave

In 1956, Philip K. Dick wrote a story called Minority Report about a future society where criminals were apprehended before they committed a crime. It was later made into a movie by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise. The core of both pieces is the same - is it just to arrest and try people for a crime they have not yet committed? And how far will society go to protect itself? At the time, it was speculative fun or biting satire, depending on how you looked at it.

In 2010, it is quickly becoming reality. In PKD's world, precognitive superhumans were the means. Today, Google and other data warehouse companies look to mine data to predict future behavior.

“When a person goes on probation or parole they are supervised by an officer. The question that officer has to answer is ‘what level of supervision do you provide?’” Berk told ABC News, intimating that the program could have a bearing on the length of sentences and/or bail amounts.
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“People assume that if someone murdered then they will murder in the future,” Berk also states, “But what really matters is what that person did as a young individual. If they committed armed robbery at age 14 that’s a good predictor. If they committed the same crime at age 30, that doesn’t predict very much.”

This is a kind of technology that needs to be closely watched and regulated. It is easy to say today that it will never be misused, but would the public have approved this technology on 9/12/2001 if it was revealed it could have predicted 9/11? We need to consider these questions now, because the hard choices are not far away.

Could we prevent another Virginia Tech or Columbine with technology?

One tech writer thinks so. Cringely is normally focussed on predicting the next emerging technology, but this week he ponders the case of the Virginia Tech shooter, and compares it with his own experience with an unstable personality in his life. I also have known some people who were clearly unstable and needed care (and largely recieved it), but whom I worry about to this day. It is an interesting question to wonder if it would be possible to create a system to scan the blogs and twitter posts and etc. that people freely post in an attempt to predict when individuals enter dangerous states. Then again, it would also be a dangerous system, like the Pre-Crime of Philip K. Dick's Minority Report, because it would tempt society to act before any crime has been committed. And really, is it possible to have such a system which can act early enough to extend a helping hand, while the disturbed individual is still capable of accepting it?