Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the new shiny object that has a lot of people talking about it and trying it out for a lot of different purposes. AI has great potential for solving some big problems with healthcare, transportation, logistics, research, learning, and more.
It is well documented that AI could also be a threat in many ways. AI can be manipulated to deliver misinformation and biased results to mislead people, spread false rumors, violate copyrights, violate privacy, create security risks, and many forward-looking leaders are concerned about many other potential threats to humanity. We know AI is being utilized by evil doers to manipulate truths, pictures, videos, and imitate voices to create new “scams”, cyberattacks, and other acts of evil.
What about big problems like record levels of shootings, violence, suicides, drug overdoses, workplace violence, bullying, depression, and many other increasing problems, is AI a viable solution?
We know AI lacks common sense and doesn’t have a “gut feeling” and human intelligence about the nuances of human behaviors and grievances. Human Intelligence (HI) is vital to identifying at-risk individuals hours, days, weeks, and months BEFORE they escalate and arrive at schools, workplaces, and community locations to execute their plan of attack.
If you are a leader responsible for improving safety in schools, higher education, workplaces, and communities, do not make the dangerous mistake of overlooking the value of Human Intelligence (HI).
After attacks we almost always find out how “intelligence” in the form of pre-incident indicators (warning signs, red flags, concerning behaviors, suspicious activities, social media leakage, etc.) were exhibited and community members (humans) observed the “intelligence” before the attack occurred.
Human Intelligence (HI) is needed to identify pre-incident indicators such as concerning behaviors, suspicious activities, social media leakage, real threats vs. non-threats (for example, posting “I am going to take a bomb to the concert” vs. “I am going to the concert, and it is going to be the bomb”), and many other behaviors that Human Intelligence (HI) can understand, recognize, and then humans can take appropriate actions to intervene with at-risk individuals.
Communities are looking to their leaders to lead the way with better ways of preventing at-risk individuals and evil doers from attacking innocent children in schools and innocent people at workplaces, shopping malls, grocery stores, and numerous other public spaces. This is where leaders must embrace Human Intelligence (HI) as one of the best and proven ways to prevent at-risk individuals and evil doers from escalating and executing their attacks.
If you agree that nothing is more important than students and teachers returning home from school safely each day” or “nothing is more important than the safety of students/employees and having a safe environment to learn/work in”, then know this… Human Intelligence is proven to work. Like AI, HI needs appropriate tools and training so “human intelligence” can be effectively collected from community members and funneled, shared, assessed, and connected so intervention, disruption, and prevention actions can be taken before the at-risk individuals or evil doers show up at your front door.
When it comes to preventing shootings, violence, and acts of evil from occurring, do not overlook the power of Human Intelligence.