Public sector use of AI offers significant potential value but also brings with it significant concerns over its responsible use. A new project led by the University of Cambridge aims to put ethical considerations at the heart of decisions to use AI within digitalisation initiatives to create public value in connected places
Public sector use of artificial intelligence (AI) to inform decisions about societal issues (eg climate change) and create public value through digitalisation is growing.
Some local authorities (LAs) in England are already using large language models (LLMs) and predictive analytics in making city-scale decisions.
This rate of development is expected to grow, considering the potential of AI to enhance several aspects of work. Despite the potential, a key problem is how to use AI ethically and responsibly.
The data-heavy ideologies underpinning large-scale placemaking initiatives that leverage the use of digital technologies (“smart” cities projects) and growing explorations by city managers to use AI to inform decision-making have raised significant ethical concerns around the world (eg algorithmic biases that exacerbate existing marginalisation and discrimination).
High-profile projects have been shut down for such concerns – eg the use of facial recognition, which increased minority targeting in San Francisco policing. The already existing ethical concerns about the creation of connected places are now significantly compounded by the challenges and problems of an uncritical embrace of AI.
Developing an ethically rooted approach requires multidisciplinary thinking
For any future applications of AI (eg LLMs and Co-Pilots) to truly help create public value and positively impact society, ethical considerations must be the starting point.
A crucial first step here is developing an ethical and responsible innovation-rooted approach to guide how LAs would create public value through using AI.
This undertaking is not purely a social science study of LAs and their decision-making processes, internal organisational structures, the regulatory frameworks within which they operate, and wider societal factors and ethical considerations that shape AI use; neither is it solely a technical experiment about how to design algorithms or write the codes based on which AI would operate, nor even an evaluation of the technological features of any given AI prior to selection and use.
Clearly, developing an ethical and responsible innovation-rooted approach for public sector AI use has social and technical dimensions closely intertwined.
Furthermore, the use of different kinds of AI as part of creating connected places through digitalisation sits right at the nexus of a close examination of what happens in practice and rigorous interdisciplinary research cutting across the knowledge domains of engineering, spatial and urban governance, decision making, and ethics and philosophy.
To develop an ethically rooted approach for public sector AI use, therefore, ultimately requires a socio-technical view and multidisciplinary knowledge.
Delivering transformation through practice-informed research
To transform the future landscape of AI use in the public sector, a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Cambridge have embarked on a frontier practice-informed study focused on putting ethical considerations at the heart of decisions to use AI within digitalisation initiatives to create public value in connected places.
This project is part of five newly funded research programmes under the University of Cambridge’s flagship mission on artificial intelligence through AI@CAM initiative, created to drive a new wave of AI innovation for the benefit of science, citizens and society.
The project, Decision-Making with AI in Connected Places and Cities: Developing an Ethical and Responsible Innovation-Rooted Approach for Public Value Creation, will investigate how local authorities in England are using AI to make decisions about issues such as placemaking, land use and mobility, and sustainable water supply systems to create public value.
To this end, the project would examine the multi-party process of decision-making to identify motivations for considering or exploring AI use to address large-scale urban challenges. Driven by the vision for a future of public sector AI use in large-scale digitalisation initiatives, the project will deliver new knowledge to shape real world city-scale decision-making practices about AI use in the public sector.
Practical insights will be developed into guidance and professional development workshops for LAs and their project partners, focused on how to make ethically informed decisions about AI use within large-scale digitalisation initiatives.
Designed as a practice-informed and impact-driven research, the project emphasises engagement with city managers in LAs and their digitalisation project delivery partners to discover considerations that are made when contemplating using AI, particularly to identify any ethical and/or responsible innovation elements that it entails.
The Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge is leading this interdisciplinary project, facilitating collaboration among experts from the Departments of Land Economy, Architecture, the Leverhulme Centre for Future Intelligence, Cambridge Zero and Anglia Ruskin University.
Call to action
This is an exciting time for strong collaboration between local authorities and researchers to understand how to practically root AI use in ethical considerations, and to show how that can be done.
Doing so now will significantly change how we create the future we want. If you work in or with a local authority in England or are involved in delivering large-scale digitalisation projects related to placemaking, land use and mobility, and sustainable water supply systems, you are invited to join our network.
Please email: ko363@cam.ac.uk or connect with the team on LinkedIn.
Dr Kwadwo Oti-Sarpong
Senior research associate
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Tel: +44 (0)1223 332600
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