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Smart cities promise efficiency through AI-driven urban management, but ROI-focused deployments systematically erode privacy, amplify inequality, and undermine democratic participation. Surveillance infrastructure creates continuous behavioral monitoring, while sensor deserts and biased training data entrench discrimination in resource allocation and predictive policing. The trillion-dollar industry prioritizes computational efficiency over citizen rights, though alternative models from Barcelona and Amsterdam demonstrate that data sovereignty and participatory governance are possible. Without binding regulatory frameworks that mandate transparency, bias audits, and democratic oversight, algorithmic urban management risks automating historical inequalities at scale.

The Smart City Trap: Privacy Erosion and Inequality at Scale

Exploring the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, posthuman ethics, society and culture.