Great reporting,I hope you'll keep tracking this issue as more departments come up against this choice. There's some haunting footage of the leadership at Axon in the documentary "All Light Everywhere" that I think about whenever I see their company pop up in the news.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has said that the most likely to happen sci-fi film (cuz we were [are] already living it in many ways) is “The Minority Report.” oh I could say so much more, about “predicting” terror B*S* etc. but I don’t have the time. ➡️ NO AI in policing‼️ LEOs in all levels of gov’t ALREADY can’t handle the mere basics‼️‼️‼️
When I reached out to Axon about facial recognition and other AI tech, they gave me some run around like they were going to answer my questions and then just flat out didn't respond. That and racial bias are both concerning aspects of AI in policing.
Thanks for your article, Ryan. As a retired software engineer, I keep an eye on how AI is being used in that profession, and one of the parallels with AI use in writing police reports is, as the King County person said, is the lack of experience writing a report themselves. It is so important to apply guardrails on AI when personal liberties are involved.
I found that part especially interesting, too. The idea that less experienced officers may jump at AI to write reports, but then aren’t getting the skills to tell the story narratively themselves, potentially harming their ability to testify in court. Obviously, we are seeing those concerns come up for software engineers in a big way already.
Great reporting,I hope you'll keep tracking this issue as more departments come up against this choice. There's some haunting footage of the leadership at Axon in the documentary "All Light Everywhere" that I think about whenever I see their company pop up in the news.
I haven’t seen that documentary, but I have watched far too much Axon promotional material in the past few weeks. I’ll have to check that out.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has said that the most likely to happen sci-fi film (cuz we were [are] already living it in many ways) is “The Minority Report.” oh I could say so much more, about “predicting” terror B*S* etc. but I don’t have the time. ➡️ NO AI in policing‼️ LEOs in all levels of gov’t ALREADY can’t handle the mere basics‼️‼️‼️
Reading this article and the one below reinforces my opposition to AI in law enforcement
Tennessee grandmother jailed after AI facial recognition error links her to fraud https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/12/tennessee-grandmother-ai-fraud?CMP=share_btn_url
When I reached out to Axon about facial recognition and other AI tech, they gave me some run around like they were going to answer my questions and then just flat out didn't respond. That and racial bias are both concerning aspects of AI in policing.
Thanks for your article, Ryan. As a retired software engineer, I keep an eye on how AI is being used in that profession, and one of the parallels with AI use in writing police reports is, as the King County person said, is the lack of experience writing a report themselves. It is so important to apply guardrails on AI when personal liberties are involved.
I found that part especially interesting, too. The idea that less experienced officers may jump at AI to write reports, but then aren’t getting the skills to tell the story narratively themselves, potentially harming their ability to testify in court. Obviously, we are seeing those concerns come up for software engineers in a big way already.
And with the technology advancing quickly, it’s difficult to create standards that will hold up in the future.