Broken, p.2
Broken, page 2
“PAPA?” Peter said as he pushed his chair seat down.
Once the chatter had died out, the lights dimmed. The glow of the vast screen focused everyone’s attention, and eventually, they were quiet enough for the announcer to begin.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming to this exciting event this evening,” a disembodied male voice said over the sound system. “Your host is the chief executive officer of Compex Technologies. Please welcome to the stage, Mr. Ben Masters!”
The applause was thin, slow, and perfunctory, but Ben Masters walked out beaming, his arms raised in gratitude. He was in his late thirties, and his pasty-white skin, soft hands, and bland smile made him every bit like a man who spent his life in front of a computer. He wore clothes preferred by software developers everywhere—Converse high-tops, denim jeans, and a gray T-shirt that, in Masters's case, struggled to flatter a slight paunch. It was an upgrade to his regular outfit though, of which sweatpants and Crocs were staples.
In a reedy, strained voice, Masters began. “First of all, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you tonight. This is one of the most exciting, ambitious projects Compex—or any tech company—has ever worked on, and I’m honored to be here today. Now, I know there has been a lot of speculation about this announcement, and I hope that by the end of the evening, I will have allayed your concerns. Let’s cut straight to the chase.”
CHAPTER THREE
MASTERS PRESSED THE button on his prompter, and an image of three police officers sitting in front of computers replaced the logos on the screen. A thin mic that wrapped around Masters’s cheek, and the clicker he held in his hand enabling him to control the slides in his presentation, allowed him to pace the stage. As he walked back and forth, he struck thoughtful expressions as he rubbed his chin and made stabbing gestures with his hands to emphasize his points.
“For the past five years, we’ve spoken to law enforcement—not just in Vancouver, but in every major city across North America and Europe—and many of them have come to the same conclusion. The biggest problem facing law and order today is information. Every unsolved crime, every unprosecuted criminal is the result of information deficiency.
“That gap, that information deficiency, is holding you back from doing your jobs. That’s the problem we have to solve, and that’s what PAPA is for.” The screen behind him changed again. "PAPA" filled the left of the screen, now vertically presented as an acronym.
“Profiling and Prediction Algorithm,” Ben Masters announced. “PAPA. It will revolutionize policing. The fight against crime, against terrorism, against public disorder, has just received a major upgrade.”
There were groans from the audience. Heads turned. People muttered to one another. Others uncomfortably shifted in their seats.
“So how does it work?” Masters continued, unperturbed by the audience’s reaction. “PAPA collects and correlates over three hundred data sets for any given situation. GPS coordinates, shopping activity, social media, transportation data, browsing histories, search data, and so on.” The muttering rose to a buzz of discontent, but Ben Masters merely smiled and held up his palm.
“Now, I know what you’re all thinking. This sounds intrusive and unethical. Very un-Canadian. But this isn’t wiretapping. This isn’t spying. This isn’t ‘Big Brother,’” Masters said, waving his hands and laughing. “We have the information. It’s all already available to us—given to us. Every time you click to agree to ‘terms and conditions,’ or use a service and allow it to ‘make your experience better,’ every time you use a ‘free’ email service, a ‘free’ mapping service, a ‘free’ search engine, every time you use a card, or social media, or an app, you’re voluntarily giving us this data. We already have it. And we've had it for years.
“So far, we’re just using it to serve better ads, or to recommend TV shows based on individual tastes, but the possibilities are endless. In the years to come, entities will exploit this data with increasing accuracy in pursuance of different goals, but most often, it will be used to make someone money. And if that's the case, why not also use it to make the world a safer, fairer, better place?
“For two years now—primarily in Vancouver, but in many other major cities—we’ve combined the data we collect with the data retrieved by you, the law enforcement and intelligence communities—the criminal profiles, fingerprint and DNA data, crime reports that are an essential part of your day-to-day work. By correlating information from these two sources, we can predict, investigate, and solve crimes with amazing results.
“Let me give you an example: imagine someone is shot in their own home during a burglary. They don’t see the invader's face, there’s no footage, and though several items are stolen, none of them can be traced. PAPA can use data points such as ballistics information, point of entry, method of assault, items stolen, and time of day to draw up a list of suspects before the detectives are even called from their beds to join officers at the scene. And we can go deeper. If the victim recognizes the perpetrator’s clothing, PAPA will scan credit card records of all recent purchases of said clothing to narrow that suspect list further. If the suspect has an always-on listening device in their home—such as a voice-activated phone or any voice-controlled device—we can trace their voice signature with an accuracy almost as high as fingerprinting. We’ve refined PAPA through numerous iterations—and the results are astonishing.” The screen behind Masters changed again to display a stream of statistics, elegantly presented with stylish graphics.
“To test the efficacy of PAPA’s predictions, we ran tests using data from murder cases that went to trial and led to a successful conviction. PAPA predicted the culprit in ninety-seven-point-eight percent of murder cases—and did so within twenty-four hours. Some of those investigations had taken months to identify the killer and build enough of a case for a conviction. It took PAPA less than a day. And we’re working on getting that success rate even higher.
“Our success identifying the perpetrators of other crimes is as impressive: ninety-six percent of arson attacks, ninety-seven percent of violent crime, and ninety-nine percent of robberies.”
“This is ridiculous!” The shout came from somewhere at the edge of the hall. Everyone turned to see the man heckling. He stood, waving his fist. From his long trench coat, large frame, and grey hair, Diana concluded he was a detective—old-fashioned, stressed, but experienced and incapable of any other kind of work. And probably good at it because of that.
“You can read off as many big numbers as you want,” he shouted, addressing the audience as much as the stage now, “but everyone here knows that policing is more than just numbers. You can’t get a computer to do law enforcement’s job.” There were murmurs of approval that grew into a sprinkle of applause, encouraging the detective to continue. “It’s all very well testing it on old cases, but how do we know this thing is reliable in real time?”
The audience turned their attention back to the stage, curious to hear how the tech CEO would reply.
“Computer-based fingerprint matches, DNA lab results, criminal databases, these seemed like risky technologies at the beginning too.” Masters said. “You use technology all the time already. This is just another tool for you.”
But the crowd was unconvinced, and restless now too. Masters looked down at the stage floor and pressed a finger to his ear. He seemed to listen to something. After a pause, he dropped his finger and looked at his audience with renewed energy and a broad grin.
“I’m willing to take all your questions in a moment, but I’d like to show you something first. I think you’ll feel a lot different once you see this.”
Masters stepped aside to allow the audience to focus on the giant screen. It flickered, and the slide on it was replaced by a still of footage from the live feed of a police officer’s body cam. Suddenly, the still burst into life. The officer was in a patrol car, driving at high speed through Vancouver, his colleague beside him. The sirens were on.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE AUDIENCE WAS silent and still as they watched the action on the screen. There wasn’t an officer in the audience who hadn’t been in a similar situation. They were instantly engaged. As the patrol car barreled through Vancouver streets at a clip, they knew something big was about to occur. Their anticipation rose like gas over a swamp.
The audio from the scene—the roar of car engines and occasional chatter over radios—was low, and once the audience had been stunned into silence, Masters walked to the center of the stage, the action running behind him.
“What you’re looking at is a live feed from the body camera of Constable Michael O’Malley. Next to him, driving the car, is Constable Frank Yang. They’re following a police van, inside of which are several armed officers. They’re on their way to a location in Downtown Eastside. No investigation was conducted at this location before the callout. Nor is any investigation connected with it. No crime reports, no security camera footage, no tip-offs, no history of criminal activity.”
The patrol car halted, and there was a flurry of organizational chatter as the officers prepared to disembark. Something blocked the body cam for a while, but the tension was clear as the sounds of car doors being slammed and boots hurrying across the pavement came through.
“But using PAPA,” Masters continued, occasionally glancing up behind him to check the screen, “we can predict with a ninety-nine-point-seven percent certainty that this location is being used to manufacture and distribute Class A drugs.”
Masters stepped aside again. On the screens, they watched as armed police officers readied their weapons and moved in formation toward the shopfront. It stood alone, two stories high, with alleyways on either side. The street was dirty, littered, and largely abandoned. Everyone watching the giant screen shared in the armed officers’ tension and heightened awareness, just as if they were on the ground with them.
“PAPA profiled numerous data sets, including drug offenses committed in the surrounding area, purchases made at local stores, cellphone activity in and around the building. Even local traffic data. Again—we’re not listening in on calls or snooping through emails. This is all readily available information, gathered completely innocuously. We mine huge datasets to reveal patterns and correlations, and use artificial intelligence to simulate human intelligence, allowing us to act far, far quicker.”
But the audience was not listening. The events playing out on the screen had them transfixed. There were shouts for the audio to be turned up.
“Police! Open up!” The squad arranged themselves around the door, guns ready.
“I can hear them inside,” one of the officers said.
“Open up!” The team leader nodded to one of the men. “Bring the door down.”
The next twelve seconds were a blurry chaos of activity, the sense of danger and mayhem exacerbated by the shaky body cam’s perspective. A battering ram smashed the door open, and immediately shots rang out. The officers scrambled for cover and returned fire.
While this was happening, O’Malley, whose body cam footage was being played in the auditorium, remained pressed against the wall next to the store’s entrance until he received the signal to head inside. When he did so, the body cam gave a jerky, terrifying view of his raised pistol as he swung it into corners and swept rooms inside the house.
As he moved through the building, O’Malley’s body cam showed rooms full of drug manufacturing equipment—stoves, packing machines, stores of chemicals used to cut the drugs. Powder dusted many of the surfaces.
Shots echoed through the dim room, and the audience was thrust into a first-person view of a shootout. O’Malley crouched behind a doorframe and returned fire, targeting a figure that moved through the kitchen.
Another officer appeared at O’Malley’s side. They pressed forward together. There was another whirr of activity, more crackling radio chatter. O’Malley moved into the kitchen, and the audience glimpsed a man leaping through a window.
The officers followed, finding themselves in the alleyway beside the store. A black SUV carrying two other men sped down it, and as it passed him, the door flung open, and the man threw himself into the back seat.
Half the audience rose to its feet, horrified that they were watching criminals get away. O’Malley sprinted after the car, the camera jerking so much that the audience had to squint to pick out what was happening. O’Malley’s heavy breathing purred through the giant speakers.
Only Diana was distracted. She peeled her eyes from the screen to look at Ben Masters. She noticed the sly smile on his face and wondered why. Within seconds, she had her answer.
The sound of screeching tires reached them. O’Malley stopped running. Two police cars pulled up at either end of the alleyway, blocking the SUV’s escape. O’Malley raised his weapon and glanced to one side. Five other officers joined him, their guns also raised. O’Malley moved in, shouting as cops forced several men out of the car and onto the ground where they handcuffed them. As the final locks slotted into place, the tension in the auditorium lifted as everyone heaved a sigh of relief.
“That was no accident or even much of a surprise.” Ben Masters said, wearing a large, proud smile. “PAPA had given us an eighty-six percent probability they would use this alleyway as their escape route. Those police cars were positioned ready and waiting to block it.”
On the screen, the officers led their captives away, and as Ben Masters’s words echoed around the auditorium, the audience was quiet. They glanced at each other, unsure of what they had just witnessed and what their response should be. A sprinkle of applause began, uncertain at first, but soon gathering pace, eventually leading to a round of rousing applause and cheers of support that Ben Masters accepted with a gracious bow.
Only Diana and Peter didn’t clap or smile or cheer. They swapped thoughtful expressions, both too experienced, too cautious to get carried away.
CHAPTER FIVE
“CAN YOU BELIEVE it? PAPA even knew how they were going to escape. The ramifications are huge. Imagine knowing how every drug bust is going to go down in advance . . . It’s insane!”
Diana had invited Ryan back for dinner. Terri Jenkins—Diana’s dog sitter and girl Friday—was also staying. Diana thought the two singletons might hit it off. But Ryan seemed infatuated with something else entirely.
“It’s insane alright,” Peter grumbled as he brought the pasta and salad dishes to the dinner table. “How do we know that whole thing wasn’t just an elaborate stunt?”
“You think they faked a drug bust to a bunch of skeptical law enforcement?” Diana said, settling herself at the table next to Terri. She had changed out of her formal work clothes and heels and was now barefoot, wearing a floaty, feminine, yellow dress with tiny, blue flowers.
“I’m not saying that,” Peter replied. “But all that nonsense about ‘no investigations, no tip-offs’—I don’t buy it. And as for ‘predicting’ they would escape through the alleyway—I could have told you that as soon as we saw the layout of the building and surrounding area. It was all just showboating.”
Cutlery clattered against plates as they scooped food from passing bowls onto their plates, but Ryan couldn’t contain his excitement for long. “It’s just the beginning. Of course they’re going to be extra careful with it. Especially with all the negativity around. But just think about all the lives it could save, all the crime it could deter, all the terrible murders and rapes and robberies it could prevent.”
“I don’t know,” Terri ventured tentatively as she twisted spaghetti around her fork. “Some big computer making decisions about who to arrest, who’s a criminal and who isn’t—it sounds kind of scary.”
“It won’t work like that,” Ryan said.
Peter folded his arms. “It won’t work at all. Statistics, data . . . all those things come after the fact. They’re what the commissioners and chiefs play with. Real police work happens face to face, with boots on the ground and hard-won experience. And all that happens before the fact. No computer system—no matter how big or well-designed—can replace human instinct.”
“Precisely.” Ryan splayed his hands out in front of him. “And that’s what PAPA is going to let us do even more of, while it takes care of all the bureaucracy, form-filling, and file-dragging that wastes so much time.”
“The media certainly seems keen on it,” Terri added.
“The journalists are just rehashing the company press releases. They probably don’t even understand it. It’s the thin end of the wedge. I don’t know what would be worse: PAPA not working at all or working too well.” Peter stood and poured them all some wine.
“How do you mean?” Terri wanted an explanation. Diana admired her for her persistence in the face of Peter’s cynicism.
“Well, if PAPA fails, we get rid of it—great, in my opinion. But if it’s a success, what do you think will happen? We’ll end up giving the technology more and more power until it’s telling us what to say in interviews and how to communicate death notices to loved ones.”
“But we already use AI in so many areas of life,” Ryan said. “From shopping to logistics to transport. And we’re hardly aware of it. People get all up themselves about email scammers and cold callers. What they don’t realize is that they are being monitored and monetized all the time. Masters is right. Every time we do something online, we’re tracked. It makes me laugh when I hear people screaming about privacy, and yet they are perfectly happy to buy something online. They don’t understand that companies sell the data related to that purchase to other companies who then use it to make more money in other ways. If they do it to increase value to their shareholders, why shouldn’t we do it to make the city safer? Law enforcement is already behind the times.”
