by Rick Pruetz, Vice President, Ecocity Builders
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the best and/or worst new thing. Advocates say it will rocket mankind to new heights of productivity. Opponents say it will cause massive unemployment, further concentrate wealth, and, according to extremists, ultimately lead to the downfall of human beings. But love it or hate it, AI has become a reality that the ecocities movement must understand and responsibly use if we want to stay in the forefront of helping to shape a rapidly changing world. Fortunately, some smart people have been writing about this.
Simon Bibri and three other academics from Switzerland and Norway have compiled a bullish assessment of AI’s many applications in a paper soon to be published by Environmental Science and Ecotechnology entitled “Smarter eco-cities and their leading-edge artificial intelligence of things [AIoT] solutions for environmental sustainability: A comprehensive systematic review.” These authors write that throughout the 2010s many cities used technology to boost sustainability in an effort to become smart ecocities. Their 2024 paper, which is essentially a study of 305 other studies, finds that the convergence of AI and AIoT is already enhancing sustainability, climate action, and urban development though resource efficiency, energy conservation, mobility, waste management, impact mitigation, and the protection of biodiversity… all goals of our Ecocity Standards.
Bibri and his colleagues acknowledge that increased demand for AI and AIoT will require massive amounts of natural resources to build and maintain smart infrastructure. These systems also require the safe disposal of vast amounts of e-waste and the generation of significant amounts of energy, which will only contribute to climate change unless and until this energy comes from totally renewable sources.
The paper also admits that deployment of AI and AIoT faces public skepticism over bias, privacy, cybersecurity, and ethical concerns, particularly since the technology is a black box to most people and is often controlled by powerful for-profit corporations. In this regard, the authors recognize the substantial challenge of using AI and AIoT to serve rather than replace human values and decision making.
Turning from the province of techies to an activity that everyone can understand, the American Planning Association (APA) has released recommendations for responsibly using AI to improve planning processes that can be accomplished more efficiently by machines so that planners can focus their work on human interaction. For example, AI can produce a street grid pattern that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions or analyze the build-out of a zoning ordinance. But the task of translating community concerns into visions, goals, policies, and regulations is creative work requiring human involvement that cannot be accomplished by a machine.
Planners need to be involved in the development of AI tools or at least become discerning tech users to ensure that machines are only performing repetitive tasks that do not require the ethical concerns and imagination of humans and that the efficiencies produced by AI match community values. In other words, planners should not accept “black box” AI but understand and be able to explain how tech applications promote the community’s professed goals.
Planning should serve the common good. But does that mean planning for the most people? What about minorities and marginalized groups? Besides inclusion, planners should ensure transparency in recognition that communities will not be able to trust AI outputs without understanding the data and assumptions that went into the black box. In addition, planners need to assure that AI is not simply regurgitating historical practices skewed by inequities, bias, and discrimination.
More recently, the 2024 Trend Report for Planners notes that current AI planning tools are “not without their flaws”. This confirms the need for planners to understand and, ideally, participate in the development of AI to ensure that this technology contributes to the evolution of ecocities.
References
Andrews, Clint et. al. 2022. AI in Planning: Opportunities and Challenges and How to Prepare – Conclusions and Recommendations from APA’s “AI in Planning” Foresight Community. American Planning Association. 2022. Accessed at AI in Planning: Opportunities and Challenges and How to Prepare (planning-org-uploaded-media.s3.amazonaws.com).
Bibri, S. et. al. 2024. Smarter eco-cities and their leading edge artificial intelligence of things solutions for environmental sustainability: A comprehensive systematic review. Environmental Science and Ecotechnology. Accessed at Smarter eco-cities and their leading-edge artificial intelligence of things solutions for environmental sustainability: A comprehensive systematic review – ScienceDirect.
Trend Report for Planners. 2024. American Planning Association. Accessed at 2024 APA Trend Report for Planners (planning-org-uploaded-media.s3.amazonaws.com).
