How AI Could Impact Smart Cities
Originally published by Marshall Kirkpatrick at www.getlittlebird.com as part of a 30 day series on the intersection of AI and 30 other exponential technologies, as explored by cross-over influencers and experts.
These “combinatorial exponential” technologies, as Frank Diana calls them, could have exponential impacts on the world in isolation - but when they combine, things will get really interesting.
“Smart city” is a phrase that could mean a lot of things, but most often it refers to a networked city full of sensors, across buildings, infrastructure, vehicles, mobile devices, and in some cases including citizen participation or input.
The most common goal is efficiency but there are many possibilities once real-world systems are instrumented, or made measurable. And wise thinkers point out that maybe efficiency isn’t an end in-and-of-itself, but a means to improving sustainability and quality of human life.
One thing that’s for sure: from the smart city platforms already in market today to what industry watchers expect to see in the future, one constant is big, big data. “The content of such data ‘oceans’ will be so massive, and the relevant analysis so complex, that only artificial intelligence will be able to carry out the relevant data processing and forwarding with the necessary accuracy and speed,” Deutsche Telekom board member Claudia Nemat said in a recent blog post.
What might this intersection of AI and smart cities look like, though, in the future?
We can identify some of the 5 to 10 year future possibilities in this intersection of smart cities and AI now, (three possible scenarios are described below) but perhaps even more valuable is identifying some people who are likely sources of future knowledge about possible futures. Who’s paying the most attention to both smart cities and AI?
We used Little Bird’s influencer discovery and research technology to find out, (as you can use it to find key people in your industry).
In today’s edition of our 30 Days of AI series, we’ll share a few great people to watch — and a few great big potential scenarios for the future.
We’ll take a look at a few possible scenarios being discussed among experts at the intersection of these fields.
Possible Futures
Here are some scenarios identified by subject matter experts in the intersection of these two fields that could unfold over the next 5 to 10 years of smart cities + AI. We asked three questions to get these answers, using a foresight model called Incasting: what could go really well, what could go really badly, and what could just change the day to day? These are just three examples.
- A Well-Oiled Machine: AI could orchestrate and optimization flow of traffic and allocation of energy throughout a city. That could be through smart traffic control, or it could be through variable energy pricing in your home incentivizing you to consume in ways that maintain the balance city-wide. AI could help analyze a huge amount of behavior and environmental data to know when a population’s behavior is as expected - and when it’s time to sound an alarm.
- Emergent Pattern Awareness: AI could be deployed in smart cities to discover correlations between circumstances. Perhaps things about citizens and cities that we may have suspected but didn’t have a clear model of, perhaps unknown unknowns. By dropping the cost of thesis creation to near zero, and evaluating every possible permutation of multiple data sets intersecting, we may learn things about ourselves we never thought to ask. On a human scale, this is reminiscent of the time in US history when census data and housing loan data were both made available for analysis by computers. Researchers discovered a clear pattern of racial discrimination in mortgage lending against African American families in traditionally white neighborhoods. Legislation was then passed. Now imagine that same kind of measurability and analysis of data about civic life scaled up to 21st century Big Data levels.
- AI Empowered Citizenry: Some say a city isn’t really smart until it includes its citizens’ perspectives and participation. Others go further and say a city isn’t smart until it helps its citizens be smarter, themselves. Picture artificial intelligence doing the number crunching to co-ordinate networks of people retrofitting cities into smarter, more sustainable places, or helping individual citizens make wiser choices, not just for themselves, but for the collective whole as well.
Who to Watch
By analyzing tens of thousands of connections between subject matter experts and thought leaders in both AI and drones, on Twitter, we found a list of respected smart cities thought leaders who appear to be paying particularly close attention to AI thought leaders online. Watch them and you may be one of the first to know about new developments and opportunities at this very important intersection.
Rick Robinson
England’s Rick Robinson writes at TheUrbanTechnologist.com. Tweeting at @dr_rick, Robinson follows a lot of the most important figures in AI. He’s also interested in sustainability and food.
Patricia Gandit
Patricia Gandit is a Paris-based marketer at Cisco. She’s influential with CMOs and in the IoT market and has interests in social media, content marketing, digital marketing, and innovation.
Michael Jansen
MichaelCAJansen is the CEO of urban data consultancy CityZenith. He follows a number of the big names in AI on Twitter and is followed by thought leaders in smart cities, urban design, and solar power.
Watch these three people!
This intersection of technologies is just one of 30 different intersections with AI that we’re analyzing in the 30 days of AI series at Little Bird. The future is coming on fast and one of the best ways to be prepared is to watch the intersections!
