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Law Enforcement is a profession with many challenges. For instance, the rapid Identification of individuals, the predicting of criminal actions and the fighting against fake news. To cope with these challenges, police officers require analytical skills to scan their environment and remember all of this to collect as much evidence as possible. As artificial Intelligence (AI) possesses unprecedented capabilities to acquire and analyze data, AI seems perfectly fitted to strengthen law enforcement (LE). (Campbell, 2018)

One of many implications of AI within LE is the use of body cams. As stated before, recognizing faces is an important aspect of the police work. With the use of body cams and AI, facial recognition could happen on the spot. For instance, a Chinese firm equipped police officers with facial recognition glasses which told the officer real time if the person in front of them was on a police blacklist (Campbell, 2018). Also, the body cams protect citizens. Since police officers are recorded on their job, they are forced to stick to the rules and only use their power in a justified way (Campbell, 2018).

Next to these advantages for LE, other benefits could be achieved as well. For instance, Facebook is using body cam footage of LE to train their video take down algorithms (Porter, 2018). This will reduce the social impact of for instance terrorist trying to scare a particular group of individuals.

Although the benefits sound massive, not everyone is excited about these developments. Techniques are developing rapidly, but some models still have accuracies of only 50% (Walch, 2019). For this reason, its use in life-and-dead situations should be secured. Also, the use of facial recognition could impact any individuals privacy, raising an ethical question (Tangermann, 2019). In other words, in case society would use AI as one of the main forces in Law Enforcement, more progress should be made.

Even though the technology of AI isn’t optimized yet, the technology already shows great potential. And since there is just too much data for the officer to capture alone, AI is strongly expected to assist within the upcoming years. Let’s hope the developments turn into great improvements after carefully making considerations about the downsides and advantages of AI for LE

 

References

Campbell, T. (2018). ‘Opportunities and Challenges from Artificial Intelligence for Law Enforcement’. Assessed on 04-10-2019 via https://www.futuregrasp.com/opportunities-from-artificial-intelligence-for-law-enforcement

Porter, J. (2018) ‘Facebook to use bodycam footage from law enforcement to train its video takedown algorithms’. Assessed on 01-10-2019 via  https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/18/20872350/facebook-law-enforcement-bodycam-footage-training-algorithms-christchurch

Tangermann, V. (2019). ‘Police Body Camera Maker Decides Against Using Facial Recognition’. Assessed on 04-10-2019 via https://futurism.com/police-body-camera-facial-recognition

Walch, K. (2019) ‘The Growth Of AI Adoption In Law Enforcement’. Assessed on 03-10-2019 viahttps://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/07/26/the-growth-of-ai-adoption-in-law-enforcement/#4a3aaa3d435d

 

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Facebook has been accused for cloning snapchat in many cases, and not for no reason. One of the first signals that Facebook was cloning Snapchat was in March 2016, when Facebook acquired the app MSQRD, where users were able to swap faces with different effects. This concept is comparable to snapchats ‘lens filters’. But this wasn’t the biggest attack on snapchat. Later on, in August, Facebook introduced the Story Modes on their daughter company Instagram. This nearly identical clone sets a step further towards the cloning of snapchat. (Heath, 2017)

Even though this cloning is not very classy and entrepreneurial, the list goes on. Recently, Facebook announced “Facebook Dating”, which is accused of having an unfair advantage over their competitors. The application doesn’t require any in-app purchases and is add-free, since Facebook is able to promote the application on both Facebook and Instagram. This further develops their company into one of the most powerful companies in the world. (Newton, 2019)

Besides Facebook, Amazon also is accused of cloning to further build their powerful company. Recently, Amazon introduced a shoe which is very similar to one of their top selling shoes: the Allbirds (Statt, 2019). Also in the case of Amazon, this isn’t just an incident. The offering of the Instant Pot close is another example. However, there is a big difference between these two examples. In the case of the Instant Pod, amazon sold the product as being a clone, whereas with the Allbirds clone Amazon sells the product as being their own design. Since Amazon accused of using the third party selling data they possess, the company is having an advantage over the original sellers (Bonifacic, 2019). This is be one of the reasons Amazon is able to charge half of the price, and delivering comparable quality.

While competition is conductive and should be encouraged, cloning products, especially in case of these big powerful companies, leads to unfair competition. In the past, companies seemed to care about ethics and some kind of class, while in recent years the market also shows these unsavoury tactics. Should this be part of the market forces or should the government intervene? Should these more and more powerful companies be restricted or is this a natural phenomenon which is part of the modern society?

References:
Bonifacic, I. (2019) ‘Not even Allbirds is safe from Amazon’s copycat ways’ Assessed on 01-10-2019 via https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/20/allbirds-amazon-copycat/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACjyjtTfslH3wK1eC1ZXRiKTXo97v9mRHOSRV_G-7_it4FhH9IhgAbO72RvHs6a8I8kSoqCmqnxSCwvzXyMFMpg9k1ZsF40KEPL7BbiWTebWHImNpflXf3UjLijQjSWER308xQH60Lt8osusnwMEhq7kKcCZty8TuohgsUlKX4Fx

Heath, A. (2017) ‘Here are all the times Facebook has copied Snapchat so far’. Assessed on 01-10-2019 via https://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-times-facebook-copied-snapchat-2017-5?international=true&r=US&IR=T

Newton, C. (2019) ‘Facebook Dating could have an unfair advantage over its competitors’ Assessed on 01-10-2019 via https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/9/6/20852035/facebook-dating-competition-antitrust-instagram-tinder-hinge

Statt, N. (2019) ‘Facebook may copy your app, but Amazon will copy your shoe’. Assessed on 02-10-2019 via https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/9/19/20874818/amazon-allbirds-shoe-clone-copy-sneaker-206-collective-private-label