NYU Furman Center’s Post

New essay is up at markaroo.medium.com! The first article in a series focused on generative AI (genAI) readiness for local governments. Leading off with a central question: Is genAI the next big thing, or are we just in another tech hype cycle? Spoiler alert: It’s actually not that complicated. https://lnkd.in/evipPmDh TL;DR - Generative AI is still immature, and local governments need to take a cautious, exploratory, but use case-driven approach to avoid trust-eroding missteps. Curiosity is good—obsession, not so much. - Not All AI Is Made the Same In their new AI policies, local governments often lump generative AI and predictive AI together. This is unhelpful. The risk profiles are vastly different, as are the potential use cases. - Use At Your Own Risk, Is Not a Strong Selling Point Right now, genAI comes with warning labels, and that’s no exaggeration—the State of Indiana’s new genAI chatbot requires users to agree to a six-point disclaimer before using it. When a tool comes with that many caveats, maybe it's best to be very selective about the where and how genAI is tested and avoid situations that can easily erode trust and increase skepticism. - Is genAI Following the Internet’s Trajectory? A historical comparison There’s a lot to be learned by looking at the dot-com boom and bust of the early internet and the decade it took to get from the promise (aka hype) of ecommerce in 1995 to the killer apps and online marketplaces of the 2010s. GenAI is in a similar early stage, but with a scale of change and investment that’s hypersonic.

ADE was pleased to attend the DeGEval - Gesellschaft für Evaluation e.V. Spring Workshop on Structural Policy, which took place in Düsseldorf, Germany from April 25-26, 2024. The workshop brought together experts from academia, government, and the private sector to discuss the latest research and best practices in structural policy evaluation. ⬇ More information on our website ⬇ #DeGEval #StructuralPolicy #Evaluation #Cohesion #AI

Good old fashioned politics at work under new govmt. First, cancel the unused funding. Expect later announcements with NEW funding, so new govmt can claim parenthood of new projects. https://lnkd.in/e4wrDJ8M

People want AI development that is innovative, responsible, and anchored in strong public-private partnerships. That was just one of the findings to come from "Our Life with AI," a global AI survey conducted by Google and Ipsos. See more here. ⬇

Optimism on AI ! - New survey on attitudes to AI from Ipsos (across 17 countries, incl Belgium, Netherlands, & Sweden) - shows that people  (i) see the potential for AI’s positive impact, particularly in healthcare, security, climate change, and R&D (ii) expect AI to benefit themselves personally, with a positive impact on their health and wellbeing, and people with first-hand experience using AI tools have more overall excitement about its possibilities.  (iii) workers are aware that AI is likely to change jobs and industries, and a majority think the changes will be positive (iv) respondents did express concerns about the impact of the technology, and want to see a collaborative approach between governments, civil society, and the private sector. https://lnkd.in/eWzMDnq3

New issue of the Journal of Urban Management is out now (download link below)! The editorial I wrote discusses the relationship between urban form and human health. Happy reading! https://lnkd.in/eTxQCACC https://lnkd.in/eEby5tyT

The analogy of #infrastructure development to #artificial intelligence development is powerful, as Patrick K. Lin presents in the first chapter of Machine See, Machine Do: How Technology Mirrors Bias in Our Criminal Justice System. Overt and covert #discriminatory decisions are latent to AI production. As Ruha Benjamin writes in Race After Technology: "The power of the New Jim Code is that it allows racist habits and logics to enter through the backdoor of tech design, in which the humans who create the algorithms are hidden from view," (pg. 160). https://lnkd.in/eJTCj2Zr

Publication alert 🚨 my first solo author article from my PhD is out 🥳 In it, I argue that urban authorities (primarily municipal and regional authorities) have a larger role in urban freight governance than they paint for themselves. More active public governance can contribute to the institutionalisation of knowledge needed to make urban freight more sustainable in the long term. I find that this is more important for smaller cities, which rely more on freight experimentation to gather knowledge of freight, and that these cities can make use of a combination of freight requirements and active planning processes to ensure dialogue and continuous knowledge exchange with freight stakeholders. This research was carried out at Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation https://lnkd.in/deDGStjK

Are you a researcher or practitioner working on democracy and/or AI ❓ We just published an open call 📞 for experts to inform our next report on the Future of Democracy. Please share widely! ✔ Topic 1: Citizen’s support for and engagement in Democracy combined with issues of political equality and equal participation (i.e. research to better understand attitudes to democracy now and in the future, on educational programmes, on new interfaces with citizens (e.g. youth) including through democratic innovations (e.g. to raise political awareness and communication about democracy and EU)). ✔ Topic 2: Supporting democratic quality and the future of democratic institutions (i.e. research on supporting indicators on the state of democracy including on resilience of democratic institutions, including at local and regional level). ✔ Topic 3: Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on how democracy will function (i.e. research on the use of AI on democratic practice, ideas, and potentially even structures considering its potential to the service of democracy as well as its misuses). 🎯 Deadline until 31st July 2024, 12:00 (CET). More details, here: https://lnkd.in/euF4EjCS EU Science, Research and Innovation Jolita Butkevičienė David Mair Mara Almeida Karine Badr Carlotta Alfonsi David Goessmann Jay Van Bavel, PhD Stephan Lewandowsky Pippa Norris Anne-Katrin Bock Barbara Prainsack Francisco de la Torre Francia Reppel Katja

In a world where AI is one of the most prominent topics of conversation everywhere - from the office to dinner with friends - it's incredibly useful to take a moment to understand what people expect from the growing adoption of this transformative technology. All major changes come with opportunities as well as risks and it is encouraging to see that people across the world are optimistic about the potential of AI to positively impact the way in which we live - from how we work to the ease with which we access information. A recently published survey by Google and Ipsos found that more than half of the respondents expect that AI will help their health and wellbeing in the next five years and nearly half believe that it will benefit underrepresented groups, building a more equitable world for everyone. Every day, I get the opportunity to peek into the incredible work that teams such as our AI Research team does and am excited for what the future holds. Just in the last year, AI helped us launch a tool that forecasts floods up to 7 days in advance in countries across the world, reduce emissions from contrails for the airline industry and reduce emissions from stop-and-go traffic at intersections in cities like Manchester and Rio de Janeiro. We know that people expect more AI-enabled solutions to drive positive change in their daily lives and are working hard to achieve exactly that. Read more about AI's transformative potential below.👇 https://lnkd.in/eSenv9mY