The increased effort to save the environment could have led to longer and more expensive infrastructure projects. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other environment-focused acts made it easier for Americans to contest infrastructure projects on the basis of environmental destruction. A paper from 2019 notes that these exacerbated the already growing problem of affluent neighborhoods influencing infrastructure construction, which led to escalated costs and time spent on infrastructure projects over the years. 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