ACLU warns against AI-generated police reports
The ACLU issued a white paper warning against police departments' use of AI-generated police reports, citing concerns about hallucination, bias, transparency, and accountability. Police departments in California, including Fresno, have reportedly begun using Draft One from Axon, which relies on GPT-4, to draft reports from body camera recordings.
What happened
Police departments in California are using Draft One from Axon to transcribe body camera recordings and create first drafts of police reports. The Fresno Police Department said it is using Draft One under a pilot program for misdemeanor reports, with the tool relying on OpenAI's GPT-4 model.
Reported impact
The ACLU warned that AI-generated police reports could produce errors that affect evidence and court cases, citing the technology's unreliability and bias. The group raised concerns that AI reports might omit facts, enable officers to lie about actions not captured on camera, remove accountability around discretionary power, and lack transparency in how they operate.
Index analysis
The ACLU identified four major concerns: AI systems are unreliable and prone to hallucination and bias; an officer's memories should be recorded before contamination by AI storytelling; the public and defendants lack transparency to understand how the systems work and interrogate the evidence; and the use of AI might remove accountability around discretionary power.
Governance controls
The ACLU stated it does not believe police departments should allow officers to use AI to generate draft police reports. The organization suggested that if AI tools are used, they should only transcribe audio-recorded verbal narratives created by officers, which could then be submitted alongside the original recording for review.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.