It’s easy to forget the real danger posed by the Mafia when crime families are glamorized in films like The Godfather series. Mafias still have a stranglehold on many regions of Italy, and not just in the countryside either. There are transatlantic ties between Mafia families, sophisticated racketeering processes (including forcing funeral homes to pay for dead bodies), alongside the “horse’s head” threats; even the mayor of Rome fears for her life — to the point of living with a police escort. Read full article here
Societal Issues
AI Predicts Crime A Week In Advance With 90 Per Cent Accuracy
An artificial intelligence model built by Ishanu Chattopadhyay and his colleagues analysed crime data in Chicago from 2014 to 2016 and managed to predict future levels of crime down to the nearest 300 metres, a week before they actually happened. While extremely useful, this artificial intelligence has been shown to expose racial prejudice in law enforcement. Hopefully, as the study’s data and methodology have been made available for others to evaluate, these prejudices can be avoided in the next iteration. Read full article here
Merv
August 15, 2022
