Big Tech: Artificial Intelligence

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said: “AI is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire.”

The confluence of computing power and big data generated by the widespread digitisation of human activity are enabling data scientists and engineers to develop AI applications and solutions which can handle increasingly complex problems.

As an example, the Institute for Disease Modelling, one of the leading epidemiological modelling groups in the world, has used data to estimate the probability of certain outcomes in order to optimise impact and implementation of disease prevention and response.

However, against the backdrop of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect in the European Union (EU) in May 2018, a debate has emerged about citizens’ digital rights and their relationship with data.

This struggle illuminates a conflicted and unresolved data policy debate in cities like Barcelona, who must answer the following questions before implementing their smart city policy (i) Can European cities build alternatives that put citizens back in the driver’s seat as decision-makers rather than relegating them to the role of data providers? (ii) Should European cities focus on building decentralised infrastructures based on blockchain to prevent the ‘surveillance capitalism’ extractive data practices of large technological corporations, where these practices violate citizens’ digital rights? (Zuboff, 2019)

To allow AI to realise its full potential, governments need to create a public policy environment that fosters AI innovation, while also mitigating unintended societal consequences.