The rise of AI urbanism in post-smart cities: A critical commentary on urban artificial intelligence

Critical Commentary The rise of AI urbanism in post-smart cities: A critical commentary on urban artificial intelligence

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is emerging as an impactful feature of the life, planning and governance of twenty-first-century cities. Once confined to the realm of science fiction and small-scale technological experiments, AI is now all around us, in the shape of urban artificial intelligences including autonomous cars, robots, city brains and urban software agents. The aim of this article is to critically examine the nature of urbanism in the emergent age of AI. More specifically, we shed light on how urban AI is impacting the development of cities, and argue that an urbanism influenced by AI, which we term AI urbanism, differs in theory and practice from smart urbanism. In the future, the rise of a post-smart urbanism driven by AI has the potential to form autonomous cities that transcend, theoretically and empirically, traditional smart cities. The article compares common practices and understandings of smart urbanism with emerging forms of urban living, urban governance and urban planning influenced by AI. It critically discusses the limitations and potential pitfalls of AI urbanism and offers conceptual tools and a vocabulary to understand the urbanity of AI and its impact on present and future cities.

摘要

人工智能正日益成为二十一世纪城市生活、规划和治理的一个重要特征。人工智能曾经仅限于科幻小说和小规模技术实验,现在却以城市人工智能的形式出现在我们身边,包括自动驾驶汽车、机器人、城市大脑和城市软件代理等。本文的目的的是批判性地审视在人工智能新兴时代城市化的本质。更具体地说,我们阐明了城市人工智能如何影响城市的发展,并认为受人工智能影响的城市化(我们称之为人工智能城市化)在理论和实践上不同于智慧城市化。未来,人工智能驱动的后智慧城市化的兴起有可能形成理论上和实践上超越传统智慧城市的自治城市。本文将智慧城市化的常见做法和观点与受人工智能影响的新兴城市生活形式、城市治理和城市规划进行了比较。本文批判性地讨论了人工智能城市化的局限性和潜在危险,并提供了概念工具和词汇来理解基于人工智能的城市化及其对当前和未来城市的影响。