The police are already using AI to write incident reports

Some police officers have begun using generative artificial intelligence to write their reports, worrying watchdogs and delighting officers who are relieved of tedious paperwork, the Associated Press reported this week.

Axon, a company best known for its body cameras and Taser product line, announced Draft One last April. The software, which pulls information from audio recordings from body cameras, is already being used by police officers in Oklahoma City, Fort Collins, Colorado, and Lafayette, Indiana, the AP reported. Competitors Policereports.ai and Truleo offer similar products.

According to Axon's website, police officers spend 40% of their time writing reports. Draft One – which uses the same large language model as OpenAI's ChatGPT – and competing products promise to eliminate that work, so officers only have to read the generated reports and check a box to indicate their accuracy.

According to AP, Oklahoma City police only use the tool to write reports on minor incidents where no one is arrested, but other police departments, including in Fort Collins and Lafayette, said they use the tool to write reports on all types of incidents.

In addition to concerns that the tool could reinforce bias or misrepresent facts, Axon's own CEO told AP that prosecutors had reported concerns that officials would later claim they did not write their reports – a possible attempt to evade accountability amid legal investigations.

Reporting is just the latest AI-powered feature to hit police departments. Artificial intelligence in law enforcement has been a hotly debated topic for years, and the technology has already found its way into gunshot detectors, facial recognition systems, and predictive analytics software.