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West Midlands police chief quits over AI hallucination

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/19/copper_chief_cops_it_after/
74•YeGoblynQueenne•1h ago

Comments

bell-cot•1h ago
A wonderful precedent. Now if only it could be applied to other professions, and lower-profile cases...
JanSolo•1h ago
Agreed. All humans need to learn to fact-check their sources. Especially those in decision-making roles.
Ylpertnodi•23m ago
"Trust but verify', very often equals 'fuck it, I'll do it myself'.
hamdingers•39m ago
I worry the precedent is backwards, the source of the error suffers no repercussions.

In areas where we move away from humans doing work into humans checking the work of agents, we should be worried about an arrangement where the human is present only as an accountability sink for the mistakes of the agent.

mattmanser•32m ago
It's not clear what happened from this news report.

His error in judgement may have been he hadn't investigated the problem sufficiently. Then falsely testified to the government. That's a big deal on its own.

The officer involved might have been fired or reprimanded, we don't know from that article.

phyzome•1h ago
I'd rather that the cops who actually used the AI slop had been reprimanded, and the chief had been kept...

I wonder if this was one of those Google AI "summaries" that people are so happy to trust.

embedding-shape•59m ago
> I wonder if this was one of those Google AI "summaries" that people are so happy to trust.

"Microsoft Co Pilot" (sic) is being called out as the tool that was used.

Does Microsoft have anything similar to Google's AI summaries on Bing or inside other Microsoft products, like Windows?

nottorp•40m ago
With both MS and Google pushing "AI" on everything, it's possible no one realized they're reading an "AI" summary and the Copilot branding was what was on Word.

Hey btw, how do "AI" summaries on Google search look? Exactly like honest [1] results, like they did with ads?

[1] If there are any honest results left on a Google search. My impression is everything is from content mills, be it "AI" or human slop.

tetris11•54m ago
Same. The fact that he stepped down harkens back to a time when officials took responsibility for their gaffs. Given the current pedigree of public officials, I'd rather that he stayed on, instead of being replaced by someone worse
throwaway85825•59m ago
It wasn't because of the AI hallucinations but the intent of the document the hallucinations appeared in.
jaapz•36m ago
And the fact that he initially blatantly lied about AI being used
throwaway85825•13m ago
There were multiple failings.
alistairSH•46m ago
But the cop who generated the report is still on staff and free to do more idiotic things in the future?
bell-cot•36m ago
Probably? But across a large org, "a worker bee doing X cost the previous CEO his job" is a far stronger lesson than "a worker bee doing X cost him his job".
mitchitized•31m ago
I'd say the exact opposite, "doing this will get YOU fired" is the strongest possible message.
alistairSH•19m ago
It’s a strong message to senior management to insert proper oversight.

It’s not a strong message to line employees to use their brains.

jimnotgym•35m ago
An organisational administrator can stop their team using Copilot and tell them not to use other tools. If the officer had used tools after that then they should indeed be disciplined
spankalee•30m ago
A gen AI tool doesn't spontaneously open up and say "Hey, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are hooligans". The intent is usually from the user. It's quite possible that the officer prompted the AI while in Word with something like "Help me write a reason we should ban these fans".
jolmg•24m ago
> stop their team using Copilot

> If the officer had used tools after

They didn't use tools. They did a Google search and assumed the results didn't originate from an AI tool.

The lesson from the article is that even if you don't use AI tools, AI content may still creep into your investigation.

Sharlin•16m ago
They specifically used Copilot according to the article.
oldjim798•38m ago
The police should be banned from using AI in any form
lloydatkinson•21m ago
Just wait till the UK police decide to outsource social media Wrong Think detection to LLM's.
Kapura•21m ago
this is true of many fields.
secondcoming•9m ago
True.

The judiciary are using it too: https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/overwhelming-support-...

blibble•8m ago
everyone else too
flooow•20m ago
This story has been horribly misreported in the mainstream media. Suffice to say that the AI gaff was the very thinnest pretence for a politically motivated firing. The true reason being that West Midlands Police made the UK govt furious for suggesting that maybe Maccabi were violent thugs rather than persecuted victims, which goes against prevailing official narratives WRT Israel.

I have only found one news source that actual tells the story properly (warning, long read): https://whispering.media/the-maccabi-gospel/

qweiopqweiop•10m ago
I'll share my opposing view point. Whilst Maccabi fans may contain hooligans, that's not really surprising for football fans. Fans travelling within Europe cause trouble all the time.

What is different, is that Maccabi fans were blocked from attending by the police/council when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment. Secondly, the police were aware of plans within the Birmingham Muslim community to attack said fans. Instead of coming down on these people planning violence, they decided to avoid the situation entirely.

Furthermore, they ignored evidence from the Amsterdam authorities who haven't said the Maccabi fans were as riotous as you claim. Using AI hallucinations was just the cherry on the cake.

dundarious•7m ago
> when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment

This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv.

PaulRobinson•17m ago
Talk about a misleading headline.

After months of widespread protests across the UK, the police in West Midlands looked at multiple intelligence reports and concluded that protests and violence would be inevitable if the match went ahead and fans from Maccabi Tel Aviv were allowed to travel to Aston Villa's ground. Their advice was that away fans should not be granted tickets to the event.

The issues at the core of this decision are about alleged antisemitism rising in the UK, presumed violence of a group of fans with an uncertain intelligence picture, and how decisions were made with these analyses trading off against each other.

He resigned because of that process leading to the Home Secretary no longer having confidence in him.

I don't think the misleading of the select committee would have helped him, but he gave an answer based on all that he knew at that point in time, with the best of intentions. The fact he hadn't been briefed isn't his fault. The fact he leaned into a decision that had wide-ranging political ramifications without first opening up the discussion to more stakeholders is his fault, and it's why he's no longer in the job.

gtirloni•11m ago
> Talk about a misleading headline.

Something I always expect from TheRegister.

epgui•2m ago
Is it just me (English as a second language but very fluent) or is this extremely hard to read? Does this even grammar?

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