How AI Will Take Revenue From Police And Courts

Yeah, The Robots Are Taking Over, We Got It

I’ve seen a lot written about how AI is going to make a lot of jobs obsolete over the next couple of decades. Most of it has been about the direct impact of machines designed for certain tasks as they replace workers. Taxi drivers will be replaced by autonomous vehicles, fast food workers by kiosks, and warehouse workers by robots. But what about indirect job loss?

Click It Or Ticket

Nobody likes getting traffic tickets. And in the near future, it’s highly likely that nobody will get traffic tickets, or at least the number of traffic tickets will greatly decline. As more and more self-driving vehicles hit the roads, traffic tickets will be issued less and less. These cars won’t speed; they won’t fail to use turn signals or stop at red lights; they can find open parking spaces on their own and, conceivably, with a blockchain solution, pay for the parking autonomously as well; and as there’s no human driving, passengers should be able to be three sheets to the wind without getting fined or thrown in jail (and I’m sooo looking forward to that day!)

So, what are the police going to spend their time on without so many “criminals” on our roads? You might think it would free them up to pursue real crimes, and you might be right. Or, maybe, it might mean cuts to police forces. Yeah, probably that.

Tickets Are Paychecks

But there’s another factor at play here. Obviously, the money received (some would say stolen) from these traffic and parking violators has to go somewhere. Some of it goes into education, like programs to remind people to use their seat belts. Some goes into red tape like document storage fees. But a lot of it goes to pay for the police and the courts. Speeding tickets alone account for over $6 billion per year in revenue. It’s a major source of funding, and its decline could mean there isn’t enough money to pay for all of these police, judges, and lawyers.

Here’s a breakdown I found Of where the money from traffic tickets goes.

So what are all these newly jobless public servants going to do with their lives? I haven’t a clue. If you have any ideas, let me know in the comments.

Published on Hive on 2017-01-19. View the original post and discussion on Hive.