AI and urban governance: from the perils of smart cities to Amazon Inc. urbanism
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Chapter › peer-review
Authors
The extensive deployment of commercial AITs is increasingly shaping urban environments and what was previously the realm of urban planning and governance. We highlight the importance of cities as testing grounds for proprietary and commercial AITs and the socio-political implications of such processes amidst tensions between the flattening gaze of the software and the multiple, irreducible realities of the city. To describe how AITs become part of urban planning and policies, we show how the AI promise of delivering better governance quickly turned into controversial socio-political effects. These include lack of transparency and democratic oversight, technocratic solutionism, and encoding of racial, gender, and class discrimination in algorithmic systems. We then draw on Amazon as a case study to illustrate how powerful commercial AITs are ever more frequently controlling operations crucial to urban life, such as logistics and security, and how they are thus affecting how cities function and are governed.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Handbook on Public Policy and Artificial Intelligence |
Editors | Regine Paul, Emma Carmel, Jennifer Cobbe |
Number of pages | 12 |
Publisher | Edward Elgar Publishing |
Publication date | 21.06.2024 |
Pages | 423-434 |
ISBN (print) | 978 1 80392 216 4 |
ISBN (electronic) | 978 1 80392 217 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 21.06.2024 |