CA – Oracle Cops

Classroom Activity: Oracle Cops

AI systems designed to assist in the fight against crime have been in use in many German cities for several years. The systems evaluate various demographic factors and police data. They make recommendations on where it makes sense to increase police presence to prevent crime.

In this activity, students work in pairs or small groups. Each group receives a set of event cards, chips/coins in two colours, and a city map. According to the task, the students discuss all the event cards, evaluate them, and distribute coloured chips on the city map. After processing all the event cards, the coins are counted, and the route of the police patrol is determined.

The distribution of coins on the locations and the final route of the police patrol is likely to vary slightly among the groups because the assessment of the events is based on subjective judgment. The results of each group can be documented after the game and discussed in the plenary session. This process makes students aware that even seemingly objective AI systems make decisions based on data created based on subjective decisions of people. Students now seek further contexts in which this can be problematic and where bias plays an important role.

Print the event cards and the city map in the appropriate quantity, cut out the event cards. In addition, you need coins or tokens in two different colours, as well as a pen for drawing their route.