AI Ethics: Inclusivity in Smart Cities

By virtue of being a burgeoning global AI hub with a healthy innovation
ecosystem, Montreal is arguably among the most influential in shaping the future being defined by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Citizens and local leaders therefore have a disproportionate ability to shape the inclusive and ethical development of our collective future, both in our community and globally.
The World Economic Forum’s #ShapingMyCitysFuture challenge asked young people around the world: What would it take to build cities of the future in which everyone – regardless of gender, race, income, age or ability – can live and thrive?

The Montreal AI Ethics Institute and the Global Shapers Montreal Hub are joining forces for an evening to discuss the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), with a particular focus on inclusivity in cities.

This session will take a critical, deep-dive into what this means and will explore this through the following reading material with an objective to produce a short article summarizing the views from our discussions.

Mandatory Readings:

1) What It Means To Lead An Inclusive City In 2018–And Into The Future
https://www.fastcompany.com/40542775/what-it-means-to-lead-an-inclusive-city-in-2018-and-into-the-future

2) Mayor de Blasio Announces First-In-Nation Task Force To Examine Automated Decision Systems Used By The City https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/251-18/mayor-de-blasio-first-in-nation-task-force-examine-automated-decision-systems-used-by

3) What Artificial Intelligence Reveals About Urban Change https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/07/what-ai-has-to-say-about-the-theories-of-urban-change/533211/

4) AI in Smart Cities: Privacy, Trust and Ethics https://newcities.org/the-big-picture-ai-smart-cities-privacy-trust-ethics/

5) Stop Saying 'Smart Cities' https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/stupid-cities/553052/?utm_source=twb

Adventurous Readings:

1) Inclusive AI: Technology and Policy for a Diverse Urban Future http://citris-uc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Inclusive-AI_CITRIS_2017.pdf

2) AI and the City https://medium.com/urban-us/ai-the-city-a4f40c1a13d7

NOTE : Please join Slack via http://bit.ly/ai-ethics-signup as we will be actively discussing things there leading up to the session.

Format :

6:00-6:30 Registration and networking

6:30-6:35 Introduction

6:35-6:40 Break out into groups

6:40-7:00 Group discussion

7:00-7:55 Group presentations and debate [3 min. presentation + 4 min cross-questioning by group]

7:55-8:00 Session wrap-up

Guiding questions for the session:

1) What are the 3 concrete steps that citizens can take to better engage city officials in addressing issues raised in the articles?

2) What are 3 ways that we can enhance public competence when it comes to meaningfully discussing ethics, inclusion and privacy issues in using AI in smart cities?