With AI, cities can better serve citizens seeking good healthcare, education, security, and food security.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to build smart cities and ensure an inclusive COVID-19 recovery, said ADDO AI Chief Executive Officer Ayesha Khanna during the Asian Development Bank's Southeast Asia Development Symposium (SEADS) 2021. ADDO is an artificial intelligence solutions firm.
Countries need to make sure their cities are livable since each second, five people join the ranks of the middle class, most of them through migration to cities, she said. “When they come to cities they expect good healthcare, good education, good security, and definitely food security.”
She lauded Singapore for taking measures to regulate the AI space, including setting up an advisory council on ethics. “All technologies are a double-edged sword. They can do great things but they can also manipulate people. They can also cause harm,” she said.
“We want to take advantage of all these but we also want to mitigate the downside through analysis of the way data is used through data governance, AI governance through education, and making sure that citizens are aware that the government is handling all these in a responsible and transparent manner.”
