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International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

HCII 2020: Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions pp 443–463Cite as

Participatory Governance in Smart Cities: Future Scenarios and Opportunities

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12203))

Abstract

In smart cities, citizens’ lives and data will be increasingly intertwined with the systems used by local, state, and federal governments. Given such a context, this paper focuses on the role that automated decision(-making) systems (ADS) play—and could play—within smart cities and unpacks the challenges of stakeholder participation in determining this role. To address future scenarios and propose a provisional framework for participating in and with ADS-laden cities and government, we begin with the case of New York City’s Automated Decision Systems Task Force as a concrete example of the challenges of regulating, governing, and participating with ADS. As a single example, we explore the particularities surrounding the Task Force, including the mobility of its policy, the difficulty of defining the issue, and finally the proposed framework for overseeing ADS in New York City. We introduce two practices of participating in city-making: participatory governance and participatory design. As we explain, these practices emphasize the role of stakeholders—e.g. citizens, bureaucrats, private industry actors, and community groups—in crafting the policy and technology that they use or are impacted by. We then propose a provisional framework for ADS transparency and accountability based on these participative practices. We recommend enabling citizens to directly help regulate and design automated decision-making systems with the caveats that doing so can be messy, contextual, and frictional. In sum, this paper advocates that all communities should be empowered to understand and impact the systems determine their destiny.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Caroline Sinders was a recent Mozilla Fellow for the Mozilla Foundation focused on the problems of bias in AI to create more equitable and ethical technology systems. More on her work can be found on her website here: https://carolinesinders.com/.

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  1. Mozilla Corporation, Mountain View, CA, 94041, USA

    Nicole Shadowen, Thomas Lodato & Daria Loi

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  1. Nicole Shadowen
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  2. Thomas Lodato
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  3. Daria Loi
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Correspondence to Nicole Shadowen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Smart Future Initiative, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

    Norbert Streitz

  2. Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Shin'ichi Konomi

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Shadowen, N., Lodato, T., Loi, D. (2020). Participatory Governance in Smart Cities: Future Scenarios and Opportunities. In: Streitz, N., Konomi, S. (eds) Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12203. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50344-4_32

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