Exciting new thriller explores the concept of whether AI could be the future of law enforcement
In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan is out in paperback on January 4, 2024
by Fiona Callow · Birmingham LiveArtificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used to carry out labour-intensive tasks at work – but could it also be the future of law enforcement?
A Midlands police department is piloting a new AI detective, the first of its kind in the UK. Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity (AIDE) Lock can make 40,000 calculations per second, takes holographic form, and can be worn as a wrist strap like a Smart Watch.
Don't worry though - at the moment, Lock is a work of fiction, the creation of author Jo Callaghan.
Her debut crime novel, In the Blink of an Eye sees the futuristic detective introduced in a Warwickshire Police Force pilot scheme to work alongside a seasoned human partner, DCS Kat Frank.
Kat’s years of experience and gut instinct initially clash with Lock’s logic. But when a missing persons cold case they’re working on suddenly becomes active, she realises they must work together to find the perpetrator before they strike again.
Novelist Jo Callaghan wrote the first draft in 2019, just two months after her partner of twenty-eight years died from cancer.
"I wanted to write about loss: about the missing and missed; about those left behind," she explained.
"So I created DCS Kat Frank, a middle-aged detective returning to work after the death of her husband. In my day job, I was also exploring the impact of AI on the future workforce, and it triggered an idea: could I partner her with an AI detective, and what would happen if I did?
"Thus, AIDE Lock – an Artificially Intelligent Detecting Entity – was born."
Currently, there is no agreed definition of AI, but the term is typically used to refer to applications and tools such as automation, analytics, and machine learning.
Many of these methods are increasingly being used by police in the UK and across the globe to process vast amounts of information, recognise patterns, and even predict future crimes by using algorithms and historic data.
"For my novel, I took all of the different AI applications and located them in one holographic being: AIDE Lock," Jo added.
"With the exception of Lock’s real time conversational abilities, most aspects of AI described in the book either exist now or are on the horizon.
"A recent Parliamentary Horizon Scanning Report assessed the impact of AI on policing as 'high' and estimated that this would likely happen within a 5-year timescale."
Law and order is a system built on trust and consent; In the Blink of an Eye poses the question is not whether an AI detective is technologically possible, but whether we as citizens would trust them.
In the Blink of an Eyeisout in paperback on January 4, 2024.