The algorithm identifies locations in major cities that it calculates have a high likelihood of crimes, like homicides and burglaries, occurring in the next week. The software can also evaluate how policing varies across neighborhoods in eight major cities in the United States, including Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

But using artificial intelligence to direct law enforcement rings alarm bells for many social justice scholars and criminologists, who cite a long history of such technology unfairly suggesting increased policing of Black and Latino people. Even one of the study’s authors acknowledges that an algorithm’s ability to predict crime is limited.

“The past does not tell you anything about the future,” said Ishanu Chattopadhyay, a professor from the University of Chicago and lead researcher of the algorithm. “The question is: To what degree does the past actually influence the future? And to what degree are the events spontaneous or truly random? … Our ability to predict is limited by that.”