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Insights from a panel on "AI and Shaping the Future of Our Cities" hosted by Salzburg Global at the Pune International Literary Festival
The 2023 Pune International Literary Festival once again offered the opportunity for Salzburg Global Fellows to share their work and inspire new ideas with festival-goers.
On December 17, 2023, two Salzburg Global Fellows, Sanika Jawalkar, a senior operations research scientist at Shell, and Sruthi Atmakur-Javdekar, the founder and director of GRIT, participated in a public conversation at the festival. They were joined by Smita Kale, project director at Shelter Associates, who is a colleague of Fellow Pratima Joshi, CEO at Shelter Associates. I had the pleasure of moderating the event, as the network development specialist at Salzburg Global Seminar.
The conversation focused on the challenges, opportunities, and realities of using AI to help shape our cities. The three speakers represent a range of experiences with emerging technologies: Sanika is working to accelerate society's transition to net-zero emissions, aligning with a broader vision of sustainable urban environments; Smita focuses on providing cost-effective housing and sanitation solutions in urban slums to enhance the quality of life for the urban poor; and Sruthi aims to improve home, learning, work, and play environments for children, young people, and adults.
As the conversation unfolded, common threads emerged. The first thread, highlighted most strongly by Sanika, was the need to appreciate that AI exists within human systems, not in isolation. Its effective use needs to take human factors and culture into account. A significant and perhaps underestimated challenge of implementing AI technology stems from a lack of understanding and attention given to the cultural shift required to maximize the technology’s benefits, along with the need for comprehensive communication between teams learning to work in different ways. If these aspects are ignored, AI cannot be used to its full potential.
Smita and Sruthi agreed that the societal impact of AI could either reduce or exacerbate inequalities, depending on how it is developed and used. Smita's work at Shelter Associates has improved the living conditions of thousands of people. However, this accomplishment required the recording and digitizing of thousands of addresses and household surveys. Sruthi and her colleagues believe that technology like AI can help a non-profit like Shelter Associates achieve more with limited resources, but only if data exists on the issues at hand.
Sruthi sees an opportunity in emerging technologies like AI to include children and young people in their development. This would create better outcomes not only for them but also for future generations. She believes the democratic nature of information technology could allow for ground-level data to be gathered in a participatory manner with community groups, and she is keen to explore this possibility through her work.
The voices of the next generation were thoughtfully included throughout this conversation. One young audience member shared about her arduous and physically exhausting journey to school. In response, the panelists discussed how AI can create a better future for students like her and implement locally impactful changes to mitigate such situations.
Other young people in the audience shared a collective fear about what AI means for the future, specifically regarding employment and schoolwork. These sentiments brought the conversation full circle, resonating with Sanika's initial comments about how AI and other emerging technologies should integrate with the social and cultural systems that dictate our lives.
The panel concluded by urging the audience to remain open-minded and ambitious about the opportunities that AI could offer in their lives. They encouraged everyone to participate actively in AI’s development and implementation.
Salzburg Global Seminar would like to thank the Pune International Literary Festival for the opportunity to host this conversation.