The Oklahoma City Police Department is taking the help of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool to write the first drafts of incident reports, according to a report by the Associated Press (AP). The AI tool is called Draft One and is developed by Axon, an Arizona-based company that makes tech and equipment for the military, law enforcement agencies and civilians. Axon is perhaps best known for developing the Taser.
The AP report mentions how Oklahoma City police sergeant Matt Gilmore responded on seeing the AI chatbot-written first draft. He reportedly said that the AI chatbot’s first draft was a better report than he could have ever written and that it was 100% accurate and flowed better. The Draft One-written document also reportedly included a fact that Gilmore didn’t remember hearing–another police officer pointing out the colour of the car the crime suspects fled from.
30-45 minutes vs 8 seconds
The AP report says that it takes Oklahoma City police officers 30-45 minutes to write the first drafts of reports about a search. To write Gilmore’s report, the AI chatbot ‘Draft One’ captured all the info from the sounds and the radio chatter it picked from the microphone attached to Gillmore’s body cam and produced the first draft in eight seconds.
It’s not the first time police in the US have relied on AI; they have been reportedly using “algorithmic tools to read license plates, recognize suspects’ faces, detect gunshot sounds and predict where crimes might occur.” But AI-created police reports are new.
The Oklahoma police using AI-written reports: Good or bad?
While AI-written reports have been reportedly received well by Oklahoma City police officers since it saves their time, “some prosecutors, police watchdogs and legal scholars” are sceptical and concerned about how an AI tool can change “a fundamental document in the criminal justice system that plays a role in who gets prosecuted or imprisoned”, says the report.
The AP report quotes Rick Smith, founder and CEO of Axon, who says that the DAs prosecuting a criminal case want to be sure that the police officers (and not just the AI chatbots) take the responsibility of writing their reports as they may have to testify in the court about what they saw at the crime scene. That means meticulously cross-checking everything the AI chatbot included in the report.
For now, the Oklahoma City police are using the AI chatbot to create reports about minor incidents that don’t lead to arrests. “So no arrests, no felonies, no violent crimes,” the AP report quotes Oklahoma City police Captain Jason Bussert.
Also, the Draft One AI tool "generates report narratives based on body-worn camera audio, but these narratives cannot be submitted without officer review and approval. Officers must review the draft, manually fill in missing information and then sign off on the narrative’s accuracy before submission", says Axon on its website. The AI tool cannot automatically submit a report on its own.
Towards the end of the AI-generated report, the police officer in charge of reporting the crime scene must click a box confirming that the report was created by an AI tool.
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