Name in original language
Uso de Inteligencia Artificial para la caracterización de la carga regulatoria ambiental de proyectos en desarrollo
Initiative overview
This initiative addresses the opacity and complexity of Chile's environmental regulatory system. Traditionally, the manual analysis of Environmental Qualification Resolutions (RCAs) has been prohibitively slow and costly due to the sheer length and lack of standardisation within these technical-legal documents. To tackle this, the initiative analysed a sample of 1,336 RCAs, representing all mining and energy projects authorised over the last decade. This analysis identified 220,000 individual enforceable obligations, providing a clear quantification and characterisation of the environmental burden imposed by Chilean regulations on major investment projects.
This application of GenAI transforms unstructured documents into auditable, comparable databases with unprecedented efficiency. It enables large-scale analyses that would have previously required an extensive team of experts working for several months.
Core objectives
- Generate systematic evidence: Precisely dimension and characterise the regulatory burden on strategic sectors, mining and energy, by analysing over 220,000 obligations.
- Explore emerging technologies: Evaluate the capabilities and limitations of GenAI in converting “opaque” regulatory information into actionable insights.
- Promote transparency and efficiency: Advance towards a more streamlined regulatory system rooted in objective data and aligned with international standards.
- Streamline enforcement: Identify and classify enforceable obligations to improve traceability and institutional compliance.
Evolution, implementation and scalability
The initiative is designed to evolve from an exploratory exercise into a permanent public policy tool:
- Institutionalisation: The findings are expected to strengthen the legitimacy of public action, allowing the State to adapt continuously to a changing regulatory landscape.
- Technological implementation: The results are already accessible via an interactive dashboard, offering users dynamic and detailed data visualisation.
- Scalability: While this initial phase focused on mining and energy, the report establishes a replicable methodological framework applicable to any regulated productive sector.
- Evidence-based reform: By identifying the 146 distinct laws that comprise the environmental inventory, this evidence serves as a foundation for future regulatory quality improvements and legislative discussions on system modernisation.
