“Predictive policing” has an enticing ring to it. The idea is that you feed a bunch of data into a mysterious algorithm, and poof, out comes intelligence about the future that tells police where the ...

Using an algorithm similar to those that predict earthquake aftershocks, cops have for more than a decade tried to use “predictive policing” software to presage where crimes will take place before ...

Data like this seven-day crime map from Oakland, Calif., feeds predictive policing AIs. The 2002 sci-fi thriller “Minority Report” depicted a dystopian future where a specialized police unit was ...