A.I. and Smart Cities

Our 2023 book, pictured, went to press just before Large Language Models hit the ground running – or hit the fan, if you prefer. In 2024, every smart city plan incorporates a variety of A.I. applications. And history repeats.

Features of early smart city generations, utilizing pre-LLM machine learning, were really cool, from the perspective of an engineer, a coder, and a vendor. City residents’ reactions fell somewhere between “blah” and “OMG No!!,” just as they are doing now. At least then, all they needed to do was turn off Alexa at home. Now it's harder.

These cases illustrate.

Austin, Texas’ plan will prohibit surveilling people, and will use AI-based surveillance only to keep track of robots and “autonomous vehicles.” Of course we know law officers with warrants, and three-letter agencies concerned with national security, will violate that prohibition. In NEOM, Saudi Arabia’s new linear city, comprehensive surveillance of persons is a done deal. Hard wired. No off-switch. Once the students get wind of this, NEOM’s new university will find it impossible to recruit next year’s incoming class. Not to mention recruit long-term faculty.

In S.A., everything is considered a national security matter, so fuhggedaboudit. Not so in the USA, though more and more things seem to take on national security aspects. Making U.S. city residents more comfortable about surveillance does not have a technological solution. It can be solved by emplacing strict controls on what government bodies may deem “national security issues.” [1]

Now I want to talk about garbage. Not digital garbage as in GIGO, but real, physical, stinky waste.

Old two-story buildings devastated by fires touched off by the 1923 Tokyo earthquake were replaced by high-rise apartment towers. It is understood that residents of the old buildings formed neighborly bonds, facilitating mutual assistance during disasters like the earthquake; and that neighbors in high-rises are unlikely even to be acquainted with each other, much less closely bonded. This, and the atomizing effects of smart buildings and social media, make the neighborhood more vulnerable in disasters.

Songdo, South Korea’s new city, has 24/7 smart pneumatic central garbage disposal – when the tubes are not clogged [2]. Contrast with the practice in Taiwan: At set times, a garbage truck passes the tall apartment building. Residents are curbside, full drawstring garbage bags in hand, socializing as they wait for the truck. The truck signals its approach, playing an amplified Disney tune over and over and over…. Residents help each other toss their garbage sacks into the truck bed. What a brilliant way to build solidarity among neighbors! You can bet they’ll be there for each other should there be fire, flood, or invasion.

The Mayor of Albuquerque, where I live, wants to use AI traffic monitors, AI gunshot monitors, etc., in order to reserve limited human police resources for preventing and solving major crimes. I’d guess most residents are for it – though sometimes you really need a live cop for something more minor. What residents won’t give up are the social life of the plaza, the Spanglish of everyday conversation, and the appreciation of musicians and low-riders who skirt the noise ordinances.

Will AI strike the right balance of safety/surveillance versus fun? Will it speak the patois [3]? Will it treat the homeless humanely? Will it understand where social custom allows the law to bend a bit?

Must we seat a social scientist next to every coder?

[1] We can’t prevent private venues from surveilling customers, except in changing rooms and toilets. We can, though, refuse to patronize private businesses that take face recognition way too far. Here’s the horror story of the Los Angeles athletic dome. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/08/intuit-dome-cameras-hot-dog/679651/

[2] https://worldcrunch.com/smarter-cities-1/welcome-to-songdo-south-korea-the-smartest-of-smart-cities

[3] John Timmer, LLMs have a strong bias against use of African American English. Ars Tecnica, Aug.28, 2024. https://apple.news/Az6gQdfs5RHG4IfFAqhe7yA