AI and the City: Urbanistic perspectives on artificial intelligence
| Dates: | 28 October 2024 |
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| Times: | 13:30 - 15:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Manchester Urban Institute |
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| How much: | Free |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Dr Federico Cugurollo |
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Manchester Urban Institute seminar with Dr Federico Cugurollo, Trinity College Dublin
Innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming cities in unprecedented ways. In this seminar we will explore the connections between AI and the urban by focusing on the concept of urban AI and reflecting on its most prominent incarnations: autonomous vehicles, urban robots, city brains and urban software agents. We will then see how the emergence of urban AI is producing a new urbanism, an AI urbanism, that originates from smart urbanism but also departs from it along three main axes, namely function, presence and agency. Empirically, we will draw on the findings from several international case studies to examine the repercussions of urban AI and give evidence of how the emergence of AI in cities is reshaping urban society, urban infrastructure, urban governance, urban planning and urban sustainability. Theoretically, we will discuss the implications of the emergence of urban AI for urban theory and the future of cities. We will conclude the seminar with a warning about the impending risks posed by multiple urban AIs and the obscure black boxes driving their operations, but also with an invitation to politically engage as citizens with increasingly autonomous cities that might escape our understanding and thus our control.
Biography
Federico Cugurullo is Associate Professor in Smart and Sustainable Urbanism at Trinity College Dublin. His research is positioned at the intersection of urban geography, political philosophy and experimental urbanism, and explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is influencing urban governance and planning, thereby impacting the sustainability of cities. Empirically, he has done extensive research in the Middle East and Southeast Asia on many experimental cities including Masdar City, Hong Kong and The Line. Theoretically, Federico is interested in unpacking the notion of AI from an urbanistic perspective, and in fleshing out the conceptual implications of AI-mediated urban spaces, such as the “end of the city” hypothesis introduced in his monograph Frankenstein Urbanism (Routledge 2021). He is a co-editor of Artificial Intelligence and the City: Urbanistic Perspectives on AI (Routledge 2023).
Speaker
Dr Federico Cugurollo
Organisation: Trinity College Dublin
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
1.70
Humanities Bridgeford Street
Manchester
