One former journalist has developed an algorithm that gives serial killers reason to be afraid: it systemically hunts them using their public data about their victims’ age, location, sex, and cause of death.
Thomas Hargrove, a former news reporter, has taught a computer to crawl through publicly available information to pinpoint trends in the nation’s unsolved murders, according to Bloomberg. His innovation is stunning in its accuracy—it has not only correctly identified existing serial killers, it has predicted the presence of one in a city years before an eventual arrest was made.
“I think there are a great many uncaught serial killers out there,” Hargrove told Bloomberg. “I think most cities have at least a few.”
Read more for the full report on how the software works, what police think about it, and who it’s tracking now.
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