Can Building “Artificially Intelligent Cities” Safeguard Humanity from Natural Disasters, Pandemics, and Other Catastrophes? An Urban Scholar’s Perspective

Abstract

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has started to manifest itself at an unprecedented pace. With highly sophisticated capabilities, AI has the potential to dramatically change our cities and societies. Despite its growing importance, the urban and social implications of AI are still an understudied area. In order to contribute to the ongoing efforts to address this research gap, this paper introduces the notion of an artificially intelligent city as the potential successor of the popular smart city brand—where the smartness of a city has come to be strongly associated with the use of viable technological solutions, including AI. The study explores whether building artificially intelligent cities can safeguard humanity from natural disasters, pandemics, and other catastrophes. All of the statements in this viewpoint are based on a thorough review of the current status of AI literature, research, developments, trends, and applications. This paper generates insights and identifies prospective research questions by charting the evolution of AI and the potential impacts of the systematic adoption of AI in cities and societies. The generated insights inform urban policymakers, managers, and planners on how to ensure the correct uptake of AI in our cities, and the identified critical questions offer scholars directions for prospective research and development.

Distributed Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service (DAIaaS) for Smarter IoE and 6G Environments

“…Smart cities and smart ecosystems employ different information and communication technologies (ICT) to intelligently monitor, collect, analyze, respond to environmental changes [ 2 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 ]. The population growth in the urban area and the advancement in technologies have increased the demand for more sustainable cities that adopt smarter, effective, and efficient ways to manage the urban area and integrate various aspects of the ecosystem [ 76 ].…”

“…Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant, Bixby, Alexa, Uber, Databot, Socratic, and Fyle are among the many apps that we use on an hourly basis, if not non-stop. The number of industries benefitting from AI is growing, such as recommender systems, autonomous vehicles, renewable energy, agriculture, healthcare, transportation, security, finance, smart cities and societies, and the list goes on [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. The global market for AI is estimated to reach 126 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, from $10.1 billion in 2018 [ 5 ].…”

Smart Urban Mobility Innovations: A Comprehensive Review and Evaluation

“…Many of these trials relate to how AV can be incorporated into the public transport system. In fact, autonomous buses trialed as part of ProjectCAVForth are predicted to start carrying fare paying customers between Fife and Edinburgh, Scotland by mid-2021 [102] [103]. In addition, both tech and traditional vehicle manufacturing companies are investing heavily in AV.…”

Understanding Sensor Cities: Insights from Technology Giant Company Driven Smart Urbanism Practices

“…In recent years, the notion of ‘sensor city’ has emerged as a response to the future challenges of growing urbanization and datafication [ 37 , 38 ]. This new version of the city—i.e., City 4.0,—(thanks to the urban dashboards and platforms integrates Internet-of-Things (IoT) infrastructure [ 39 ], sensors [ 40 ], real-time monitoring stations [ 41 , 42 ], digital cameras [ 43 ], actuators [ 44 ], real-time tracking systems [ 45 , 46 ], big data analytical techniques [ 47 , 48 , 49 ], information and communication technologies (ICTs) [ 50 , 51 ], cloud computing [ 52 ], smart grid [ 53 , 54 ], artificial intelligence (AI) [ 55 , 56 , 57 ], autonomous shuttles [ 58 ], and other digital appliances with physical objects that characterize urban context) improves the efficiency of resources usage.…”

“…The current urban theoretical and managerial debates increasingly focus on the role of ICTs and their integration with various aspects related to sustainable urban development [ 76 , 77 ]. Indeed, the literature provides several synonymous for sensor city such as digital city [ 78 , 79 , 80 ], smart city [ 81 , 82 , 83 ], ubiquitous city [ 84 , 85 , 86 ], knowledge city [ 87 , 88 , 89 ], intelligent city [ 90 , 91 ], techno-centric city [ 92 ], creative city [ 93 , 94 ], sustainable city [ 95 , 96 ], informational city [ 97 , 98 ], smart sustainable city [ 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 ], and artificially intelligent city [ 57 ], which express the importance of ICTs in the management of the cities of future.…”