Charting AI urbanism: conceptual sources and spatial implications of urban artificial intelligence

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to tease out some of the key issues concerning the relationship between AI and urbanism. This relationship, which is presented in the academic literature as a new driving force of contemporary urbanism, will be investigated through an interdisciplinary approach that places urban studies and philosophy of technology in dialogue. Thus, the analysis will not focus on the technological development of artificial intelligence systems but on how their application can affect urbanistic thinking and vice versa. The chart that is produced by this method is based on two fundamental axes: time and space. AI urbanism will then be inquired first through key turning points in the history of the relationship between technology and the city (modern urbanism, cybernetics and the smart city paradigm). Secondly, the spatial implications of urban AI will be investigated from the point of view of the concrete applications of this technology to the city (Robots, AVs, Software agents) and their impact on the relationships between different urban actors. Ultimately, this work aims to offer a conceptual tool for understanding some decisive implications of the relationship between AI and urbanism, such as the connection between quantitative and qualitative approaches, the implications related to autonomous technology, the economic-political background of AI urbanism, the material urban impact of AI, and the relationship between AI and other urban intelligences. Understanding these implications will be valuable for future research on AI urbanism oriented toward transforming simple technological development into sustainable urban innovations.

Editorial: The governance of artificial intelligence in the “autonomous city”

“…Overall, our impression is that the "smart city" paradigm, which has characterized the configuration and governance of a myriad of cities for almost half a century, does not seem to fully hold anymore in the age of AI. Although premised upon the idea that technology can be a powerful medium to improve urban governance, the vision of smart cities has implicitly had human policymakers at its core-i.e., human agents who employ various smart devices as tools to increase the efficiency of urban services (Palmini and Cugurullo, 2023). The intelligence undergirding "smart cities" was largely human-derived.…”