Your local law force ’s newest enlistee could be more machine than homo . Security department in the UK and Belgium are , properly now , test an hokey intelligence information ( AI ) programme that will take on the arduous task of strain through potential evidence ( a process that is usually   complete manually ) to help solve crimes . Rather bizarrely , VALCRI ( Visual Analytics for common sense - Making in Criminal Intelligence ) was build from software program in the beginning   designed to prepare trainee - astronaut for stints in outer space .

other reading of the system were developed 15 years ago by a party called Space Applications Services and its purpose was to train junior cosmonaut at theEuropean Space Agency ( ESA ) Columbus research laboratory(a research facility attached to the International Space Station ) . It does this   by answer to questions such as   “ What is this ? ” and   “ Where is this ? ” .

afterward this year , a more modern variant of the technology   – an levelheaded mobile crew supporter   – will be tested by   Alexander Gerst , the next ESA astronaut to travel to place .

But programmers have also break a new use for the tech   – security measure . Recent ascent have allowed it to take on constabulary work .

The toolcombines machine - learning engineering with visual analyticsto take into account for literal - fourth dimension analytic data fundamental interaction . This entail VALCRI is capable to surf through grand of hour of surveillance camera videos and try out millions of police records to delve up clew and find connections that can help with the typeface , spar crime analysts the backbreaking task of accept to do it all manually . It may also help to belt along along investigation and predict succeeding crimes by drawing attention to data and connections humans   miss .

In 2017 , the company announced that the AI program   was undergoinga trialfunded by the European Union and taking place in the West Midlands , UK . It involves analyzing three years ' Charles Frederick Worth of real but anonymized criminal offence datum , which amounts to more or less 6.5 million records in total .   The next stage will be to use non - anonymized , Modern information   in literal - meter i.e. when the crimes are take in place .

Similar examination are also taking spot in Antwerp , Belgium , and , harmonize toSpace Daily , the software package could become a commercial Cartesian product   by the middle of this year .

This is not the first time AI has been put to the task of crime resolution . Last twelvemonth , a supercomputer was programmed to get out the identity of the elusive Zodiac Killer – andtook up poetry writing as a side sideline .