Knowing Your Place — that place you call home — Part 6
AI: Authentic Intelligence in City Infrastructures [part 6 of a nine-part series]
Earlier in this series we considered the gulf between average national statistics and the diverse realities of local economies. Monochrome averages do not show complete pictures. More than in aggregated uniformity, the real strengths and talents of any country are found in the rich diversity of local places and their people.
Over the last two decades the Open Data movement has delivered massive transparency for local metrics — enabling creation of many new types of businesses and identifying local priorities. Once it might have been said that ‘knowledge is power’. Now we appreciate that shared knowledge is empowering. The era when information was jealously guarded by those ‘in the know’ has largely been consigned to the dustbin of history.
That shift to greater openness can, in part, be attributed to the advent of digital dexterity — the ability to collect and analyse vast quantities of data. It also reflects our new-found ability to measure more things than ever before — outputs from all manner of sensors and previously uncorrelated activity patterns. The shift stems also from the entirely reasonable notion that data acquisition acquired through taxpayer investment should be freely available in the public domain. We, the people, pay for it. We, the people, will have the use and understanding of it.
To a more limited extent the front line of Open CorporateData is still being tested. Gradually more data is being released as regulators demand disclosure — most recently, for example, regarding gender pay disparities and offshore accounting, the latter reckoning now usefully giving context to relative taxation leakages and showing the vanishingly small significance of concerns around immigration.
The Media now have a new specialist discipline — Data Journalism — where analytical minds seek out new insights and creatively present their findings, often to the embarrassment of those who would rather remain in the shadows. Some Data Journalists and graphics specialists trace their forbears to Florence Nightingale’s measured exposure of perverse (ill-informed) policies in the Crimean war.
Now that the front line has shifted, we have enormous quantities of data and incredibly powerful analytical capacity to discover previously hidden correlations. We have moved from absolute ignorance to an era where the ill-defined term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ considerably overstates the capacity for Machine Learning: without any robust engineering discipline, AI could well gain an inadvertent reputation for Accidental Inference.
We need to be very careful how these new capacities are applied — particularly in local contexts. Recent revelations on the use or abuse of personal information are fuelling calls for robust ethical standards and proper regard for information assets as a key element of infrastructure. Advocates of greater personal ownership of data include the Open Data Institute and the innovative HAT project.
The human element — choosing what we measure, how to make sense of it and who has control of it — is a large part of the root theme for this year’s Intelligent Community Forum. Prof. Sir Nigel Shadbolt, co-founder of the UK’s Open Data institute, will give a keynote address on the opening day — ‘Open Data meets Artificial Intelligence: a new kind of city infrastructure’ – and he will be followed by Volker Buscher, director of Arup, who has overseen the transition of Smart City concepts from a technology focused vision to an outcome and evidence-based digital agenda. But long before the Summit arrives at that session, delegates will have already heard Andrew Carter (CEO Centre for Cities) speaking on ‘Humanising Data’ alongside Liz Zeidler, creator of the ‘Thriving Places Index’.
The scope for local leaders to set standards and encourage community members to prioritise what needs to be measured is probably much larger than most realise. Public data is now largely open. Openness has been welcomed — not merely legitimised but authenticated. Now Intelligent Communities need to think through the likely impacts of future data use and the balance between community benefit and personal privacy. The need to ensure compliance with the EU-sanctified GDPR has already had a theraputic impact across government and commerce, and — much like Trading Standards —local communities have a direct interest in maintaining place-based reputations.
Part seven of this 9-part series will consider another key indicator of Intelligent Communities — their local capacity for innovation. ‘Pacemakers for the Place-Makers’ is scheduled for publication on 16thMay.
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Illustration is cover graphic from ‘The Digital Ape’ by Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson, published 3 May by Scribe UK: ISBN 978–1911344629
