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In this edition of The INTELLIGENT Community Podcast, Soul of the City ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Bern Grush, Executive Director, Urban Robotics Foundation & John G. Jung, Co-Founder, ICF.

Local governments everywhere are racing to deploy AI in hope of improving services, communicating better and saving money. At ICF, we have seen the AI projects of Intelligent Communities grow more impressive every year. But there’s an untold story.  As a recent article put it, “an AI arms race has begun between the state and citizens, and it is not clear that the state will win.”

In the UK, local councils are responding to public frustration by developing tools that speed up housing approvals. But they are also being overwhelmed by AI-generated objections to proposed housing developments. For the low-low price of £45, the Objector AI platform will scan planning documents, draw up legal grounds for opposition and even write a speech to be read aloud at a public meeting.

I frequently lead online webinars and workshops. Like most things in life, they’re both good and bad. They lack the human touch that, in-person, can lead to real relationships – but they also let us share a much broader range of knowledge and opinion than we are likely to find in a face-to-face meeting in one place.

Not everyone who registers for these events shows up. That's their privilege. But recently, I came across something new. A couple of people showed up – kind of – by having an AI note-taker application log in, listen and summarize what it heard for later reading.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Dan Mathieson, Former Mayor of Stratford.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Dan Mathieson, Former Mayor of Stratford.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Jacob Ward, Author of The Loop.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Jacob Ward, Author of The Loop.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Dr. Norman Jacknis, Senior Fellow for The Intelligent Community Forum.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Dr. Norman Jacknis, Senior Fellow for The Intelligent Community Forum.

The advancements in artificial intelligence of the past few years have been mind-blowing. They have given rise to much research and analysis about the future of work. They have also given rise to a lot of nonsense. The trick is to figure out which is which.

On one side of the argument are respected academics and global consulting organizations. In their tremendous book, Race Against the Machine, Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson offered dire predictions of the increasing power of AI and the erosion of jobs it will bring. Their advice? Don’t fight it – instead, figure out how to work with technology change to get the greatest benefit as individuals and as a society. There have been dire predictions about how big job losses will be, but the best-informed numbers come from the McKinsey Global Institute. They predict that automation will eliminate only 5% of today’s jobs. But it will also have an impact on 60% of total jobs. On average, workers in those fields spend one-third of their time doing routine work, and routine labor is the easiest to automate. So, no matter what you do for a living, it would be wise to buckle your seat belt.