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Artificial Intelligence and the City

Urbanistic Perspectives on AI

Matthew Cook editor Andrew Karvonen editor Federico Caprotti editor Simon Marvin editor Federico Cugurullo editor Pauline McGuirk editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:1st Dec '23

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Artificial Intelligence and the City cover

This book explores in theory and practice how artificial intelligence (AI) intersects with and alters the city. Drawing upon a range of urban disciplines and case studies, the chapters reveal the multitude of repercussions that AI is having on urban society, urban infrastructure, urban governance, urban planning and urban sustainability.

Contributors also examine how the city, far from being a passive recipient of new technologies, is influencing and reframing AI through subtle processes of co-constitution. The book advances three main contributions and arguments:

  • First, it provides empirical evidence of the emergence of a post-smart trajectory for cities in which new material and decision-making capabilities are being assembled through multiple AIs.
  • Second, it stresses the importance of understanding the mutually constitutive relations between the new experiences enabled by AI technology and the urban context.
  • Third, it engages with the concepts required to clarify the opaque relations that exist between AI and the city, as well as how to make sense of these relations from a theoretical perspective.

Artificial Intelligence and the City offers a state-of-the-art analysis and review of AI urbanism, from its roots to its global emergence. It cuts across several disciplines and will be a useful resource for undergraduates and postgraduates in the fields of urban studies, urban planning, geography, architecture, urban design, science and technology studies, sociology and politics.

"One of the great puzzles of modernity involves the way new technologies change the very systems that spawn them. Artificial Intelligence and the City brings together a diverse array of ideas that show how digital developments from autonomous vehicles, drones and robots to platform economies and predictive policing, are changing the way we behave and the regulations we are inventing to contain them. This is the first book to provide an integrated picture of the new landscape of urban artificial intelligences, one that we will all need to navigate on the road to the future. Essential reading for all who are attempting to understand the critical challenges of AI."

Michael Batty, Bartlett Professor of Planning, University College London

"The advent of generative AI and deep learning algorithms has undercut and transcended the concept and technical practice of the so-called smart city. With Artificial Intelligence and the City the shift from smart ontologies to AI logics of the urban is explored across multiple case studies, from urban drones to autonomous vehicles in the city. A timely and important intervention." Louise Amoore, Professor of Political Geography, Durham University

"Artificial intelligence is transforming the socio-technical characteristics of cities under late modernity. This vital collection of essays presents multiple vantage points from which to reflect on emerging articulations between AI and urban space."

Matthew Gandy,Professor of Geography, University of Cambridge.

"By departing from the polemic that typifies explorations of artificial intelligences, this book is a well-structured and thoughtfully curated volume on the interrelationships between AI and cities. This welcome departure from smart urbanism explores the textures of urban AI at varying scales and geographic contexts, and offers the reader many stories of caution and hope by exploring, not only how the city is influenced by autonomous vehicles, robotics, platforms and algorithms, but also how it reframes and reorders these socio-technical relations."

Nancy Odendaal,Professor in City Planning, University of Cape Town

"This timely book provides a comprehensive and thought-provoking analysis of urban AI, examining in detail the workings and implications of autonomous vehicles, robotics, and AI-enabled platforms and services for city life. Richly illustrated with case studies, it is an essential guide to our emerging sentient cities."

Rob Kitchin,Professor of Human Geography, Maynooth University

"In this fantastic contribution to the field of Urban AI, the authors outline the plethora of issues pertaining to the era of urban artificial intelligence that is now upon us. They present the many ways in which AI and robotics have entered into urban spaces while reminding the reader that such techno-urban symbiosis is not new, and thus deserves careful consideration for the short and long term implications on the fabric of the city. For any reader interested in (sustainable) AI and the future of cities, this book is sure to open one's eyes to the many ways in which cities have become experimental testing sites for AI with implications for those living in cities, for the structure of the city, and for the future of AI."

Aimee van Wynsberghe,Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Applied Ethics for AI, University of Bonn


"One of the great puzzles of modernity involves the way new technologies change the very systems that spawn them. Artificial Intelligence and the City brings together a diverse array of ideas that show how digital developments from autonomous vehicles, drones and robots to platform economies and predictive policing, are changing the way we behave and the regulations we are inventing to contain them. This is the first book to provide an integrated picture of the new landscape of urban artificial intelligences, one that we will all need to navigate on the road to the future. Essential reading for all who are attempting to understand the critical challenges of AI."

Michael Batty, Bartlett Professor of Planning, University College London

"The advent of generative AI and deep learning algorithms has undercut and transcended the concept and technical practice of the so-called smart city. With Artificial Intelligence and the City the shift from smart ontologies to AI logics of the urban is explored across multiple case studies, from urban drones to autonomous vehicles in the city. A timely and important intervention."

Louise Amoore,Professor of Political Geography, Durham University.

"Artificial intelligence is transforming the socio-technical characteristics of cities under late modernity. This vital collection of essays presents multiple vantage points from which to reflect on emerging articulations between AI and urban space."

Matthew Gandy,Professor of Geography, University of Cambridge.

"By departing from the polemic that typifies explorations of artificial intelligences, this book is a well-structured and thoughtfully curated volume on the interrelationships between AI and cities. This welcome departure from smart urbanism explores the textures of urban AI at varying scales and geographic contexts, and offers the reader many stories of caution and hope by exploring, not only how the city is influenced by autonomous vehicles, robotics, platforms and algorithms, but also how it reframes and reorders these socio-technical relations."

Nancy Odendaal,Professor in City Planning, University of Cape Town

"This timely book provides a comprehensive and thought-provoking analysis of urban AI, examining in detail the workings and implications of autonomous vehicles, robotics, and AI-enabled platforms and services for city life. Richly illustrated with case studies, it is an essential guide to our emerging sentient cities."

Rob Kitchin,Professor of Human Geography, Maynooth University

"In this fantastic contribution to the field of Urban AI, the authors outline the plethora of issues pertaining to the era of urban artificial intelligence that is now upon us. They present the many ways in which AI and robotics have entered into urban spaces while reminding the reader that such techno-urban symbiosis is not new, and thus deserves careful consideration for the short and long term implications on the fabric of the city. For any reader interested in (sustainable) AI and the future of cities, this book is sure to open one's eyes to the many ways in which cities have become experimental testing sites for AI with implications for those living in cities, for the structure of the city, and for the future of AI."

Aimee van Wynsberghe,Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Applied Ethics for AI, University of Bonn

ISBN: 9781032431468

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 440g

420 pages