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Prisons are cruel and expensive.  We have all seen it: bare concrete boxes, barbed wire, guardtowers.  And, of course, mess halls, gyms, law libraries, prisoner health facilities.  It’s expensive, and all too often, counterproductive. 

 

Better would be some way to curb criminal behavior, and at the same time, foster good citizenship. ​ Imagine then a friendly and helpful monitor a miscreant must wear, a digital Surround that’s always on you and always on.  If you are naughty, you are virtually imprisoned. 

 

Your artificially intelligent Surround listens to every word you speak, observes everyone you speak to, reads everything you write, watches 360 degrees around you, monitors your pulse, heart rate, and every other measurable parameter.  It listens to you, and it talks to you, all the time, or at least when necessary.  ​With your Surround you are virtually imprisoned. 

 

You can have a job, a girlfriend, get married, have kids, be a constructive citizen, in short live free.  But, if you actually can’t adjust to virtual imprisonment, you really really don’t like it, you can, of course, be physically imprisoned.  Your choice, it’s up to you. 

 

Your 24/7 Surround is your AI friend.  Always on duty 100%.  It won’t let you hang with your old bad influencers.  No!  Excuse yourself from their company.  But your mom, your teachers, your well-meaning friends, your parole officer, your employer, everybody who gives the slightest damn about you will be welcome.

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AI Surround monitoring could be cheap.  It’s computers.  It can easily be 24/7.  And, as we are learning, AI can be smart.  At first, you can bet, some Surrounded criminals will devise ways to outsmart their AI monitoring.  These will be learning episodes for the AI.  Perhaps the Surround management system will even award monetary rewards to those malefactors clever enough to figure out original workarounds.  The caniest might be hired as consultants or programmers.  Later, schooled by experience, your friendly AI Surround will be hard to fool.  So you might as well get with the program and be an upstanding citizen.

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Most criminals are just stupid.  Within the criminal subculture they thought they were being smart.  But it’s not smart to rot.  Informed, instructed, cared for, most people can be brought along.  A good friend around your neck, cheerleading you, with always good advice, could turn your gone-astray soul around.  Hard concrete prisons would sequester only the unsalvageable, those who are actually evil.  That’s a small percentage.  The great majority might be led to prosper.

 

The AI Surround Business Case

 

Imprisoning people in the United States costs around 80 billion dollars a year.  That’s actual government expenditure.  Another huge loss is the constructive work the imprisoned are not doing.  And the guards.  Instinctively, we know there must be a better way.  What we are doing is inhumane and, judging by recidivism rates, ineffective. 

 

The organization coming up with an alternative would be contributing a public service.  And, it would be profitable.  From a societal point of view, the main benefit would be the citizenry not victimized.  But also important would be the individuals led away from crime and back to a normal constructive life.  Most “criminals” are not deeply evil.  One wants to believe, customized, constant, friendly, forceful, unremitting advice and correction could potentially re-steer the errant.  Worth a try.  If it doesn’t work, OK, concrete boxes.

 

So, the business is to design a wearable AI Surround that is always on.  Annoying, but comfortable enough, a digital necklace of cameras.  The onboard AI is the heart of this and the challenge.  A central overlord AI would be always available.  The people who can pull this off would be saving souls and making a healthier society.  Making money, and saving souls.  It’s an opportunity.