美國科學家開發新算法：可提前一周預測犯罪

Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have sparked interest from governments that would like to use these tools for predictive policing to deter crime. However, early efforts at crime prediction have been controversial, because they do not account for systemic biases in police enforcement and its complex relationship with crime and society.
人工智能和機器學習的進步受到各國政府關注，他們希望利用這些工具進行預測性用警，以遏制犯罪。然而，早期的犯罪預測工作一直存在爭議，沒有考慮到警察執法中的系統性偏見及其與犯罪和社會的復雜關系。

University of Chicago data and social scientists have developed a new algorithm that forecasts crime by learning patterns in time and geographic locations from public data on violent and property crimes. It has demonstrated success at predicting future crimes one week in advance with approximately 90% accuracy.
芝加哥大學數據和社會科學家已經開發了一種新算法，通過從暴力和財產犯罪的公共數據中學習時間和地理位置模式來預測犯罪。該算法成功提前一周預測未來犯罪，準確率約為90%。

The new study was published on June 30, 2022, in the journal Nature Human Behavior.
該研究論文于2022年6月30日發表在《自然——人類行為》雜志上

The new tool was tested and validated using historical data from the City of Chicago around two broad categories of reported events: violent crimes (homicides, assaults and batteries) and property crimes (burglaries, thefts, and motor vehicle thefts).
新模型使用芝加哥市的歷史數據，圍繞暴力犯罪（殺人、毆打和人身攻擊）和財產犯罪（入室盜竊、偷盜和機動車盜竊）兩大類報告案件進行測試和驗證。

The new model isolates crime by looking at the time and spatial coordinates of discrete events and detecting patterns to predict future events. It divides the city into spatial tiles roughly 1,000 feet across and predicts crime within these areas instead of relying on traditional neighborhood or political boundaries, which are also subject to bias. The model performed just as well with data from seven other US cities: Atlanta, Austin, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, and San Francisco.
該模型通過觀察離散事件的時間和空間坐標，檢測模式以預測未來事件，從而預防犯罪。它將城市劃分為每個大約300米寬的片區，并預測這些區域內的犯罪，而不是依賴傳統的鄰里或行政邊界，因為這些邊界也會有偏差。該模型在亞特蘭大、奧斯汀、底特律、洛杉磯、費城、波特蘭和舊金山這七個美國城市的數據中表現同樣出色。

Ishanu Chattopadhyay, Assistant Professor of Medicine at UChicago and senior author of the study, is careful to note that the tool’s accuracy does not mean that it should be used to direct law enforcement, with police departments using it to swarm neighborhoods proactively to prevent crime. Instead, it should be added to a toolbox of urban policies and policing strategies to address crime.
該研究論文第一作者、芝加哥大學醫學助理教授伊山·查托帕迪亞稱謹慎指出，該工具的準確性并不意味著應該將其用于指導執法，讓警方主動進入社區預防犯罪。相反，它應該應用于城市政策和治安策略中，以應對犯罪。

“We created a digital twin of urban environments. If you feed it data from happened in the past, it will tell you what’s going to happen in future. It’s not magical, there are limitations, but we validated it and it works really well,” Chattopadhyay said. “Now you can use this as a simulation tool to see what happens if crime goes up in one area of the city, or there is increased enforcement in another area. If you apply all these different variables, you can see how the systems evolves in response.”
查托帕迪亞說：“我們模擬一個數字化的城市環境。如果你向它提供過去發生的數據，它會預測出未來會發生什么。這并不神奇，也存在一些局限性，但我們對其進行了驗證，并且效果非常好。現在，你可以把它當作一個模擬工具，看看如果城市某個地區的犯罪率上升，或者另一個地區的執法力度加大，會發生什么。如果你應用所有這些不同的變量，你可以看到系統是如何應對的。”