Summary
Asking after the dynamics of artificial intelligence's extraordinary recent rise recalls Hemingway's famous line about going bankrupt: "In two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." That combination underscores the emergence of many technologies, of course. It creeps up on us, and then is suddenly moving at speed, everywhere. This makes it hard for cities and places to work with the grain of tech, in order to produce equitable or sustainable outcomes. Although we rarely do it, tech asks us to step back and ask the deeper questions lurking behind all the noise. In this talk I'll describe how everyday technologies, digital and physical combined, define how we live together; how they tend to articulate what we stand for as a society, or how our cities work — and what's on the table now. Drawing together inspiring projects and cases ranging from Norway to Japan, and from new cities to reimagined regions, I'll suggest how we might align design practices in order to address our contemporary shared challenges, like climate breakdown, social cohesion, and sweeping demographic changes. As AI moves beyond shuffling playlists or improving grammar and starts coordinating mobility, energy, and water systems, or how housing is allocated or buildings are made, we must rapidly figure out how design, governance, and community best understand and take advantage of these new distributed, decentralised and collaborative technologies. In doing so, we might well challenge our preconceptions of technology, economy, and community themselves.
Key Insights
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Technologies like cars have historically reshaped urban environments, often producing negative social and environmental impacts that persist.
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AI adoption will affect cities and everyday life systems similarly, requiring systemic, multi-scale design thinking from individual to city levels.
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Designers must move beyond technical problem-solving to cultural imagination, framing broader societal questions around AI’s integration.
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The "soft eyes" method encourages shifting between detailed interaction and systemic context to better understand technology’s impact.
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Ride-sharing services like Uber often increase traffic congestion and emissions due to incentivizing excess drivers, illustrating unintended systemic effects.
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Shared autonomous vehicle fleets could drastically reduce urban space usage and pollution if designed with integrated public transport and social values.
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Participatory design empowers communities, as exemplified by Swedish street projects led by children, generating adaptable and convivial urban spaces.
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Upstream interventions in health via urban planning and AI targeting lifestyle factors can reduce chronic disease costs rather than focusing narrowly on hospitals.
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Environmental resource limits, such as rare metals for batteries, complicate massive electrification efforts and must be factored into AI-driven energy planning.
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Distributed, transparent, and socially legible AI infrastructures can build trust and effective resource sharing, avoiding opaque solutions like blockchain-based energy grids.
Notable Quotes
"Technology is inevitable or inescapable, it just proliferates, but we need to contain it."
"When they become important is when they recede into the background and become mundane."
"Design is about cultural imagination, not just problem solving."
"We need to relentlessly ask: technology is the answer, but what is the question?"
"Private cars are parked 95% of the time, making them highly inefficient in urban environments."
"Uber incentivizes drivers to be on the road waiting for passengers, which adds to congestion."
"The street used to be for public life; then cars took over and changed it profoundly."
"Soft eyes means zooming between the particular tree and the whole forest to see the bigger picture."
"Electric car targets for the UK alone would demand more than the world's annual cobalt production."
"Who decides what code is good for, what humans are good at, and what nature is good at?"
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