To automate and streamline the work of the prosecutor’s team, the institution has partnered with a group of academics who have developed artificial intelligence. The tool has the ability to help track down criminal gangs that rob, deal drugs, and even kill.
He’s not a womanizer, he doesn’t have a cat either, but he works perfectly on dark nights where evil doesn’t forgive. And it is that there are such complex crimes to solve, that the investigative team of the prosecutor’s office has received detective Heredia to automate and speed up their work.
The skilled character has emerged from the pages of Ramón Díaz Eterovic’s books and comics and customized the new artificial intelligence (AI) system, based on the ChatGPT model, which the Public Ministry uses to fight crime in Chile: Heredia (Crime study tool using artificial intelligence).
The AI detective is able to chase the criminals and help the prosecutor to investigate and solve the theft criminal bargain detection cases which manually could take a lot of time.
“It does not replace the work of the analyst, but it supports it and makes it more effective,” Ana María Morales, head of the National Prosecutor’s Office’s studies division, told La Tercera.
“It allows you to absorb insights from a large volume of data, which a human analyst can do, but it would take a long time,” he adds.
An AI detective who understands like a human
Time in this business is money, so the Heredia AI is programmed for two big tasks that feed off each other. in conversation with The third Richard Weber, industrial engineering scholar at the University of Chile, researcher at the Institute of Complex Engineering Systems (ISCI) and leader of the team that developed this AI, tells in detail how it works.
The first thing is that Detective Heredia, as if he were a real person, can understand the testimonies of victims who suffered some type of crime, even when they contain spelling mistakes or bad handwriting.
Whether they are documents that have been presented directly to the Public Prosecutor’s Office or in the SOSAFE citizen application, the AI system will read these texts, analyze them and cross-check the data with other complaints in the database.
“For example, if a burglary happened the day before and the prosecutor only has the information from the victim’s testimony, we apply the AI which will read the story, but at the same time it will read all the other stories from the prosecutor. .departmental database (from the past 20 years or so),” says Weber.
It’s a kind of “intelligent filter” that will tell the researcher: “You know? What you are investigating now sounds a lot like a crime that happened three months ago and another that happened two years ago. And that is that there are modus operandi of offenders who are similar and share patterns, so the analysis can be enriched by finding someone accused of a past crime who could be linked to the current one.
“Obviously a tool that we will be able to expand to understand precisely the markets, in particular that of drugs and homicides, which are also linked to organized crime”, declares Morales.
An AI detective who finds “mutual friends” of criminals
It’s not about Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. On the contrary, Heredia, after analyzing the data, can form a social network among the criminals. Each would be a “node” in a vast network, connected to criminals with whom they have been involved in the past.
In other words, if two antisocial offenders meet on one occasion, a network forms with this information to search for connections between them, something like the Facebook Friends in Common tool, which could provide clues in specific cases.
Weber gave a clear example: “If a criminal was caught at the time of a robbery, but according to the victim there were five, with this one person we have, we can trace the contacts they have and , therefore, better direct the prosecution’s investigation. “.
This was confirmed by Morales, of the Public Ministry, as the tool helped them find the subjects “more predisposed to join criminal gangs, based on the analysis of the data”, which made the investigations “more effective and efficient”.
Has Heredia ever caught criminals?
Weber and Morales confirm that Heredia is currently working on media and current affairs and that it is working. “It’s fascinating,” admits the German engineer who developed the tool.
In parallel, the leader claims that they are already starting to use them in real cases but not yet in a massive way, since Heredia only joined in March, after working together for two years on the project.
In addition, Morales reiterates that it is used “for the purposes of criminal analysis, which in no way replaces the work of investigations, let alone that of prosecutors.”
A Chilean model, based on ChatGPT
“We don’t form the model from scratch. We took the one from ChatGPT, which OpenAI trained with millions of web pages and lots and lots of text, and then we adapted it to the texts of the prosecutor,” explains Richard Weber.
The team, led by the academic and made up of Carla Vairetti, from the University of Los Andes, Freddy Troncoso, from the University of Biobío, and Sebastián Maldonado, from the University of Chile, won this project there is five years old on the basis of a thesis student. And the associated entities are the Public Ministry and the SOSAFE company.
The basic GPT template can be purchased for development and conversion into all sorts of tools. And in this proposal, professionals have opted for the one that helps fight organized crime.
And it is that currently many institutions around the world are experimenting with AI to streamline and automate their work: “It is a reality that is increasingly being implemented”, says Matías Aránguiz, Deputy Director of Law , Science and technology from PUC to LT.
The risk that Detective Heredia will make mistakes
Regarding the errors that this type of AI can have and that have been reported with the OpenAI model, Aránguiz points out the need to further encourage its use, but that it be used well: “It must be complemented by new training, education, training and with an algorithmic audit that goes beyond ‘the perfect tool’”.
This is also how Weber, developer at Heredia, thinks it is important that there is “regulation of Artificial Intelligence in all areas, in addition to educating people. Instead of banning something, we should learn to use it. Why not use something that can have many, many benefits? The risks exist, of course, I am very aware of them, but we must face them in the best way.
But Aránguiz also called on institutions “to constantly question the tool, just like a person does. If, as a person, I allocate resources, every time they should ask me how I am doing. It needs to be checked constantly.”
And it is that, as he explains, there are errors that are obvious since they do not have a logical answer, but others that seem correct when in reality they are not. And in terms of judicial function, you have to be very careful with the margin of error that the tool can generate.
“Let it be ethical and respect the law. And it’s that we don’t have a lot of rules,” he argues, emphasizing the need for AI to be regulated in order to set limits and use it safely.
Source: Latercera
I am David Jack and I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years. As an experienced journalist, I specialize in covering sports news with a focus on golf. My articles have been published by some of the most respected publications in the world including The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
