Police Chief Reassures That AI ‘Plays No Role’ In Policing During Speech Delivered As Flickering Blue Hologram

Police Chief Alex Murphy has tried to reassure that Artificial Intelligence plays any role in modern policing, moments after addressing the press via a life-sized hologram.

The holographic Murphy reassured journalists that all police decisions are made by humans, or at the very least by entities who once met a human.

The statement followed reports that AI was used in justifying the banning of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending a Europa League match against Aston Villa last year – allegations West Midlands Police insist are categorically untrue, despite being confirmed by several spreadsheets, a neural network, and a sentient PowerPoint presentation.

“Let me be absolutely clear,” said Murphy, briefly buffering mid-sentence while his eyes rebooted. “Artificial Intelligence does not play a significant role in policing. All important decisions are made by humans. Sort of.”

Murphy added that the rest of the force is also fully human, “probably,” conceding that it has become increasingly difficult to tell since the introduction of officers who require nightly software updates and occasionally scream in binary.

“All decisions are made using individual judgement,” he explained, “except those involving risk assessments, crowd control, predictive crime modelling, resource allocation, facial recognition, paperwork, scheduling, or anything that requires a computer – which is basically everything.”

When asked whether West Midlands Police were using AI to anticipate public disorder, Murphy paused for twelve seconds, during which the hologram rotated slowly and whispered “processing.”

“My search results show that we used a non-sentient system to analyse millions of data points, predict future behaviour, and advise us what to do. But the final decision is always mine.”

The hologram then vanished abruptly, replaced by a message reading: “This press conference has been automatically approved. Have a safe and compliant day.”