Participatory AI: Reducing AI Bias and Developing Socially Responsible AI in Smart Cities

As smart cities evolve, artificial intelligence (AI) will increasingly be used to manage decisions for how cities operate. For everything from incarceration sentencing, city pension appropriation, surveillance and infrastructure management, AI will play a role. The author argues that implementing AI for a smart city should be decided similarly to how cities decide on major infrastructural planning projects. For both, there are social and ethical implications of deployment. A protocol is proposed for smart city AI so that AI can be seen as an ethical and trustworthy city asset rather than an adversary fraught with controversy and bias. This is achieved through participatory AI - the marriage of a fully transparent data architecture, such as the blockchain, and the urban planning practice of participatory planning. The diversity of opinions that participatory AI affords enables cities to facilitate socially responsible AI outcomes.