politics
Deny, deny, admit: UK police used Copilot AI “hallucination” when banning football fans
Police finally come clean about botched use of AI tools.
TL;DR
- West Midlands Police chief constable Craig Guildford admitted that Microsoft Copilot, an AI tool, generated erroneous information used in a decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans.
- The police initially denied using AI, with Guildford offering alternative explanations like 'social media scraping' and 'bad Googling' to Parliament.
- The ban was controversial, with accusations of bias against Jewish fans following recent terror attacks.
- Police claims about fan violence in Amsterdam were found to be exaggerated or untrue by Dutch authorities.
- A fabricated match between West Ham and Maccabi Tel Aviv, generated by AI, was included in the intelligence report.
- Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood stated that Guildford no longer has her confidence and called the incident a 'failure of leadership'.
- Calls for Guildford's resignation have been made by both conservatives and MPs, citing concerns about the use of unreliable AI in security decisions without proper policy or training.