How artificial intelligence can help to keep us safe

Growing up in the last years of the Cold War motivated Gabriele Jacobs to enter academia and play her part in building peaceful societies.
Jacobs works at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where she researches the role artificial intelligence (AI) can play in public safety and the ethical debate surrounding this.
She describes how experiments are being conducted on beaches in the Netherlands to see if AI can be used to predict human behaviour. These experiments also test the ethical, legal and social implications of this use of AI, and question who has the power to choose the definitions used in the algorithms.
Jacobs’ work addresses Sustainable Development Goal Number 16: to promote peaceful and inclusive societies and justice for all.
This is episode 16 of How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals, a Working Scientist series podcast that profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs. Episodes 13–18 are produced in partnership with Nature Sustainability, and introduced by Monica Contestabile, its chief editor.