Barcelona Metropolis

Artificial intelligence systems will become more and more affordable, will become a key decision-making factor and will facilitate the management of urban complexity. The major challenge lies in ensuring their integration in accordance with the criteria of technological humanism and ethical governance.

            Barcelona 2040. Drone-taxis hover above Montjuïc in search of customers leaving the Palau Sant Jordi macro-concert. Green lights flash in the air; red lights near the ground indicate which ones are occupied. The mobile app calculates the exact position and the vehicle descends silently. Upon arrival at the destination, the drone’s landing triggers the sensor on the nearest streetlight, which lights up only when it detects movement.

GPS in self-driving cars, video cameras on every street corner and street furniture constantly distil data. This is analysed by the City Council’s “central brain”. Thanks to this, within a few years in operation, accidents have been reduced, traffic has eased and ambulances get there earlier. Rubbish collection is more efficient and street cleaning is cheaper thanks to “service robots”.

Artificial intelligence algorithms – honed over years – are now safe enough to avert serious mistakes. The internet of things has transformed the way we live, get around and work. Every second, Barcelona beats to the orders of an interconnected system that controls every single movement, and human supervision checks that everything is working properly.

(Outline of a future city taken from applied pilot tests. Before we know it, this will be a reality.)

The United Nations has estimated that the population will reach 9.8 billion people by 2050: almost 70% will live in urban areas. Artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, blockchain, quantum computing, collaborative robotics, self-driving cars and the internet of things promise to become the norm in the coming years. Will we be able to slow down climate change and create more liveable environments?

The steam engine transformed industry and ushered in the First Industrial Revolution; and electric power and the internal combustion engine brought about the Second Industrial Revolution. Economist and sociologist Jeremy Rifkin^[1] declares that “history’s great economic revolutions occur when new communication technologies converge with new energy systems”.

Rifkin’s Third Industrial Revolution promotes long-term economic sustainability to address a three-fold challenge: the global economy, energy security and climate change. In 2006, he presented his theory to the European Parliament, which endorsed it.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has already been conceptually defined as the massive harnessing of the potential of emerging technologies (besides others that are already a reality, such as nanotechnology, virtual reality and cybersecurity). But that is still a long way off.

The beginnings of smart cities

In 2011, Carrer César Martinell in Sant Cugat del Vallès was considered the “first smart street” in Catalonia. Parking sensors indicated vacant spaces on a panel, a rubbish bin compacted rubbish with solar energy, a street light turned on when it detected movement and a green area measured the soil’s humidity to automate watering. These innovations were presented at the first edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress, which has been held in Barcelona since that year.

But after a decade, smart cities are still in their infancy. One of the main reasons for this is big data collection, their analysis and subsequent processing. During the pandemic, it became clear how complicated it is to deal with the current data mess in every country. There is a lack of data culture, data literacy, especially in government administration, but also in the private sector. The phrase “data is the new oil of the 21^st century” is a fine slogan, but no one has trained us to integrate this fuel into our daily lives. And the main upshot is that we have a technology whose potential very few people know how to harness and, even less so, how to control.

At European level, the study Ethics of Using Smart City AI and Big Data: The Case of Four Large European Cities (The Orbit Journal, 2019) describes where smart city action has been rolled out. In Amsterdam, AI classifies citizen grievances; Helsinki launched a chat bot to facilitate parking; and in Copenhagen, there is a digital platform for data exchange.

Catalonia is committed to “proactive administration”, which consists of informing citizens what social assistance they can apply for, according to their age, economic status, level of education, etc. In 2020, Gavà City Council took part in a pilot project, Gavius, in which a virtual assistant helped to process aid quickly via mobile phone. The pilot is part of Urban Innovative Actions, a European Union initiative that funds technological innovations to move towards more sustainable cities.