Polk County Sheriff’s Office is teaming up with Florida Polytechnic University in an effort to use the latest technological trend to fight crime.

Polk Sheriff Grady Judd announced the launch of the Sheriff’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, or SAIL. The Sheriff’s Office has started assembling staff and resources for a new investigative unit aimed at learning the latest technologies and artificial intelligence to keep people safe.

“AI is the new uncharted universe that we must sail into and chart safe navigation for all of our community,” Judd said. “We will protect you from the evils of AI.”

Judd said he thinks artificial intelligence can be used to prevent crimes, as his office is already seeing instances of AI-generated child pornography. The sheriff said it will be necessary to have the intelligence to disprove future creations, where a suspect or individual could potentially create a video of themselves to be used for an alibi.

“There’s no doubt the benefit of AI are widespread and growing stronger by the day, but so are its significant risks and dangers,” said Randy Avent, outgoing president of Florida Polytechnic University. “It’s crucial we develop and implement robust methods to combat these threats because the AI crime of tomorrow will be even bigger than the cybercrime of today.”

Avent said Florida Poly will provide essential technological expertise and support for the initiative through its students and faculty. The existing AI programs are capable of quickly sorting and analyzing vast quantities of data to search for common features and traits, finding patterns that may help solve crimes.

As of April 1, Judd said he tapped a current sergeant in the Sheriff’s Office who had a prior career in computer coding to help lead and shape the AI Lab. The individual was working in computer crimes, particularly focused on child victims.

The Sheriff’s Office will seek a civilian employee, a technician, who can serve as a conduit to the sergeant overseeing the unit and the Flordia Poly students who will be working with them to find creative solutions to problems.

Avent said college seniors as part of their course of study are assigned a year-long problem to work on and come up with real-world solutions. TAvent said he envisions two- to three-member, multidisciplinary teams being assigned to work with the sheriff’s AI Lab to provide advanced technological solutions. The first cohort of eight to 12 Florida Poly students will begin working with the AI lab this fall, he said.

The new unit will not be a large expense for the Sheriff’s Office, according to Judd. He said the Sheriff’s Office can use its existing computers and the AI programming will be developed by students.

When asked about a concern for bias in AI programming, Judd said the AI is “not capable of bias.” Avent said the AI programs learn the algorithms and patterns they are taught, and it’s a matter of making sure the important data is input while discriminating factors are not.

Judd assured there will be human oversight on what AI Laboratory discovers to ensure it is factually accurate.

“Nothing should be pushed out without a human check-and-balance,” Judd said. “Our workforce while developing this will have a totally separate check-and-balance system out of administrative investigations and professional compliance group, that doesn’t work in chain of command of operations and reports separately to the chief of staff and to me.”

Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on X @SaraWalshFl.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk sheriff creates AI Laboratory with Florida Polytechnic