...so you would rather have their efforts directed by other, less accurate, less transparent means?

The question you're begging is whether the computer oracle is accurate or transparent at all, let alone more so than traditional police work. The point isn't that the whole thing is a bad idea, it's that the comparison to wall street should not be encouraging. Frankly from the article, it sounds like the system they had just wasn't that useful, so this is moot.

From the outside, it's reminiscent of the LA school system's ipad fiasco. A flashy silicon valley purchase that hits the top three requirements for a government program:

1) Appear to be useful by spending a lot of money 2) Without addressing actual structural problems 3) While funneling large amounts of public money to well connected contractors.

My point is that there is nothing wrong with this technology in principle. I'm not saying anything about this technology in particular. The comparison to wall street should be extremely encouraging - a small number of extremely smart firms consistently beat the market. If a small number of firms can produce policing tools that make it more efficient, that'd be great.

It's unacceptable in principle. If a wall street model is right more than it is wrong then it wins. If police are wrong half the time we have a big problem on our hands.

Nobody makes all the right calls on wall street. Some just win more than they lose.

I'll say it again: This model is not convicting people, it's guiding police.

I don't see how that's relevant. As has been pointed out to you many times "it's as good as wall street" isn't an acceptable standard for criminal investigation.

Sigh. Convictions are the only place that you need a 100% success rate. How do you think a criminal investigation gets conducted? Do you think they only investigate a lead when they are 100% sure that it will lead directly to a conviction? If a piece of software generated them 5 extra leads, and 1 of those extra leads lead to actionable evidence - that's useful. You're right - 'good as wall street' isn't the standard, much less good than wall street is a perfectly acceptable standard for software that acts as an additive, informational aid to policing.

> a small number of extremely smart firms consistently beat the market

By cheating.

The naïveté of these Wall Street comments is astonishing.