#43: Smart Cities and Buildings

Ian Bowie
Hello and welcome to AI Unfiltered with me, Ian Bowie, and our resident expert, Michael Stormbom, where we will be talking about everything to do with AI in our modern digital society and what the future holds for all of us.

Ian Bowie
So we’re going to talk about all kinds of funny things today, like smart cities.

Michael Stormbom
Yes and how smart they actually are.

Ian Bowie
And how smart would you like it to be?

Ian Bowie
Well I think that’s an interesting question as well.

Ian Bowie
Well, yeah, I mean, because obviously, one of the biggest issue is if they get too smart, a lot of jobs will disappear.

Ian Bowie
There’s that and of course, then there’s the question of the surveillance state and how monitored do we want everything to be? Opinions may differ from one.

Ian Bowie
Bit of state voyeurism. The best one that I’ve I’ve come across so far, is in Finland. There’s always been this rule about pedestrians crossing the road, and it’s controlled by a green and a red man. And when the red man is shining, and you’re supposed to wait until the green man comes on, irrespective of what you know, the traffic conditions are so you get you get people in the middle of winter at standing on street corners, freezing to death, waiting for the little green man when there’s no traffic in sight. But they’re afraid of crossing just in case there happens to be a police person somewhere in the vicinity who spots them and shouts, Oye, you, come here! And then they hand out an on the spot fine. But China’s taking it one step further, actually. And they actually have cameras and facial recognition systems at these crossings, so if you cross they’ve got you, lose your social credit, or some social credit.

Ian Bowie
Something is deducted from it at least. Yes, yeah. But I mean if we’re talking about smart cities, and a poor sod standing there waiting for the light to turn green, and there’s no traffic around of course in a smart city and that light would turn on because there’s no traffic around.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, well that’s actually quite true, isn’t it? So these are semi smart cities at the moment.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, not dislike of our city too much but at least as far as the traffic lights go, I probably wouldn’t characterize it as a smart city.

Ian Bowie
You’re talking about where we live?

Michael Stormbom
Where we live, yes.

Ian Bowie
You know, traffic lights seem to have a sort of no rhyme or reason.

Michael Stormbom
We live of course in undisclosed location.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, no, they haven’t quite figured out how to make traffic lights work properly, have they.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. I mean, if we’re talking about the smart city concept and central aspects there are monitoring and data collection, and I think here in undisclosed location, the public wastebaskets have built-in sensors to monitor when they need to be emptied.

Ian Bowie
Is that right?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. To some extent, I don’t know how fully….

Ian Bowie
I was about to say I suspect that only worked sporodically. Yeah, of course, sporadically, I should say.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. And well, optimizing traffic flow as we know, so that the lights would turn green at the optimal point. But then, of course, things like energy consumption. So optimizing energy consumption are certainly a topic that’s quite relevant.

Ian Bowie
Well, it’s pretty relevant at the moment, but do you think it will be that smart that if it decides for itself that you’ve, you’ve used your energy quota for the day it turns all your lights out?

Michael Stormbom
I don’t think it will quite go in that direction.

Ian Bowie
Hopefully not.

Michael Stormbom
I think more that it will optimize it too, so it’s more balanced for the day.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. And then there was something I was watching news about Lagos. And something like 2000 people a day move to Lagos. So it’s growing. Wow, at a phenomenal rate. And you know, I mean, how are they going to manage that?

Michael Stormbom
There’ll be some growing pains. For sure.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because there was something that I just heard on the TV, 301 cities in the world are responsible for approximately 60% of its GDP. Wow.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. But I mean, that’s fairly common, isn’t it? I mean, there’s one large city… even here in Finlandm we have Helsinki and Helsinki area and then, and then there’s the rest of us. Rest of us here in undisclosed location that that produce nothing. Except podcasts.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah. No, that’s true. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
Now we’re coming back to smart cities. And you. You mentioned that you had read an article about, or saw a documentary about?

Ian Bowie
Well, it was about actually it was about Shenzhen in China. And one district that they’re using as a experiment to see you know, how smart can smart be. This is obviously one of the places where they’ve got this facial recognition system to spot people who are jaywalking, but they monitor everything. I mean, for example, they can see in a hospital how many beds are free, how many doctors how many nurses are working at any one given time and they monitor water levels. They can obviously monitor traffic flow and control that to ensure that it flows as smoothly as possible. Housing allocation, demographics, I suppose it’s just limited by your imagination as to what they can or can’t monitor.

Michael Stormbom
I mean, I think it’s all about getting data and making use of the data.

Ian Bowie
And hopefully using it for the benefit of society rather than the state.

Michael Stormbom
I would have an immediate suggestion for here in undisclosed location where it’s slippery at the moment in winter, so I almost had a bit of a tumble. So, you know, sanding the roads would be nice. Using some sort of a monitor where you need to take action.

Ian Bowie
You think a bit of gravel is cheaper than giving up a hospital bed to somebody who’s broken a bone? Yeah. Yeah. It’s quite I didn’t ask but it’s quite difficult to stay on top of that, because I mean, they did go out and grit pavements and roads but then what happens is this stuff sinks in, you know, for example, it started to melt. So then it sinks in, and then they have to go and do a second round. And then of course, when it all melts, eventually you’re left with this horrendous pile of gravel.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, and then there’s dust everywhere and..

Ian Bowie
Yeah, oh, my goodness.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. But I think it also comes down. If we’re talking about the smart city concepts, I think also interaction with the citizens. So for example, as a citizen I can, you know what, it’s pretty slippery here. Someone would need to do something about it. Yeah. Or there’s a portal here come and fix it. Also having that sort of infrastructure that allows that.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. I mean, personally, I think we should think about living underground, in places like our undisclosed location, when the winters come along, like this, if we all sort of then moved to a subterranean level, we wouldn’t have to worry about ice and snow would be because we couldn’t touch it.

Michael Stormbom
You could squeeze in quite a few people in the in the parking space under the Market Square here in undisclosed location. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Well, I mean, because years and years and years ago, there was a documentary from Canada I think. I think it focused on places like Calgary, where they get extreme winters and this is exactly what they’ve done you know, they’ve they’ve actually linked I think in the center, particularly buildings with walkways covered walkways, totally enclosed walkways, so it’s not just it’s got a roof on it. But you’re still open to the elements from the sides. These are totally covered walkways. And then they have they have literally gone underground. They’ve got massive underground shopping centers, for example. And when I look at, for example, there’s a development not too far from where we are right now. In this undisclosed location, which is, it started out as a shopping center. But it’s now developed and developed and developed and now they’ve surrounded this shopping center with apartments.

Michael Stormbom
Right.

Ian Bowie
Now, at least with a lot of the apartments, you can pretty much go directly from your apartment into the shopping center without stepping outside. So kind of means if you know if you work from home you don’t really need to ever go outside again.

Michael Stormbom
Fantastic, or is it.

Ian Bowie
I don’t know. I mean, I was actually thought that it will be quite cool.

Michael Stormbom
It’s its own biosphere. Hermetically sealed from the rest of the world.

Ian Bowie
Especially in the wintertime. I mean, why what you know, why do you really want to go out and face all that crap? I mean, it’d be quite nice, wouldn’t it? You know, there’s a swimming pool and a gym in the same complex, and the multiplex. Plus all the shops that you need.

Michael Stormbom
And then you could add some fake sunlight there. So you could have a.. well, we talked about the AI resort at some point, so how about developing that concept.

Ian Bowie
Of course you have these lights, don’t you. Happy lights. And then you take your vitamine D pills.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, fake sunlight.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah. See, you’re fine.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Throw some holograms that we spoke about in the Christmas episode. And you’re all set.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I wouldn’t actually have anything against that at all.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, sounds alright.

Ian Bowie
Snow and ice are overrated. Sorry. Do you want to go skiing? But if you’re just not using you know, he was walking for a bus and nearly slipping break your neck because they haven’t sanded the pavements properly. I just don’t see how that can be possibly described as fun.

Michael Stormbom
So in the smart cities of the future, the smart part is that we just don’t go outside and face the elements.

Ian Bowie
Well, yeah. And I think that’s probably what they’re gonna start doing is building these areas where you can choose.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, why not? Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, for example, in Helsinki in the center. I mean, you can walk quite a bit underground there.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, using the metro, you mean?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, the underground square there. And yeah, I thought it was a little bit of a missed opportunity that here in undisclosed location. I mean, we have mentioned where we are in previous episodes, so silly not to give up the pretense but I’m going to do it anyway. No, but combining it with with the concert hall. Because, why not? Why not have an underground thing that goes on? I mean, it’s just another block away.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Mind you. They’ve got the car park where you can pop up all over Turku.

Michael Stormbom
That one as well. Yes. That’s quite cool. Yeah. Which is also not connected to the new one, which is silly. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not Turku, undisclosed location.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, going back to smart cities. It’s all right, all these millions and millions and millions of people moving towards you know, bigger and bigger cities. But if those cities become more and more and more automated for example, what are those people going to do for a living? You know, I mean, for example, if you’ve got, oh, we’ve we’ve talked about autonomous vehicles before. Well, of course, you know, I could I could understand the idea of autonomous bin lorries and autonomous delivery trucks.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. And I mean, we’ve spoken about what it would take for autonomous vehicles to work in the first place.

Ian Bowie
And a city is a perfect environment for it

Michael Stormbom
As long as there’s one or the other. I think it’s the if it’s the mix of autonomous vehicles and humans.

Ian Bowie
You’d get rid of all human driven vehicles. Absolutely.

Michael Stormbom
I would see it’s more of a sort of a virtual tramway with with virtual tracks, so that you can sort of hop on to on the autonomous vehicle and it will take you to a predefined destination. Just sort of more elaborate and complex network of routes than you could do with actual physical tracks. You don’t necessarily…

Ian Bowie
I mean it will be public transport. I mean, it will be…

Michael Stormbom
You don’t own a car anymore. Just okay. Now, the car to work.

Ian Bowie
Oh, you can. You can own a car but you just can’t use it in the city. You can use it to go somewhere else.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Then you need a helicopter to transport it.

Ian Bowie
You know, I mean, you have a metro system. You have a bus system. And that should be enough. But then you know, right if you take out of the equation, you don’t need bus drivers anymore. You don’t need underground train drivers. You don’t need dustbin, lorry drivers or any other people to empty the bins in the city or to clean the streets in the city. You know the windows can be washed autonomously by drones. Traffic all traffic is monitored from some central location by one or two people only. A lot of the cleaners for example, in the hospital are robots. Maybe some of the nurses also.

Michael Stormbom
At the rate we’re going, since we insist on not paying our nurses.

Ian Bowie
Well, yeah. But do you know what I mean? It’s and also you know, your barista is suddenly a machine and your hotel receptionist is.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, so suddenly what’s the point of these mega cities because there’s suddenly nobody who lives in them has got a job anymore.

Michael Stormbom
There’s no work there. Yeah, no, that’s true.

Ian Bowie
And then the shops are all closed because there’s nobody to come and buy any of the stuff they’re selling. Ditto the restaurants. So, you know, this is actually quite interesting, isn’t it? Have they really thought it through?

Michael Stormbom
Well, who are they first of all?

Ian Bowie
Well, city planners, for example.

Michael Stormbom
No clue, but at least for example, here in undisclosed location, of course, they have those plans that span decades.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, no, but no, but of course, you know, the, the whole idea of automation is, is to improve quality of life.

Michael Stormbom
Well, so that’s the idea. Yes, but of course, if you don’t have qualifications to do let’s say, sort of programming or podcast hosting or being a reality show, start on here.

Ian Bowie
What are gonna do?

Michael Stormbom
That is good question. Play Playstation.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. But I actually wonder about these mega cities that are coming along. Yeah. And they can be as smart as smart can be.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, but if there are no..

Ian Bowie
But if they can’t support the population that live in them. They’re just going to disappear or they’re going to die.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, then they’re not going to be so mega anyore.

Ian Bowie
And then the other thing actually, which is quite interesting, was Johannesburg. Apparently the center of Johannesburg is a ghost town. Because a lot of the buildings, the high rises in the center of Johannesburg have kind of reached the end of their lifespan, and apparently are uneconomic to refurbish. And so they’ve just been abandoned.

Michael Stormbom
Right so they’re not they’re being torn down.

Ian Bowie
Nope. Nope. Quite possibly too expensive to do that as well.

Michael Stormbom
Reminds me of St. Petersburg, although admittedly, it’s been more than a decade since I was last year, but during a lot of these abandoned, like construction projects around there, so they had a building boom, and then there was a recession and then and then they just abandoned all these ongoing projects. And then they were just left.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, but I just wonder also, you know, if they think they create these nice, new, shiny cities, but then they forget that in 10 years, 20 years time, they’re going to need some refurbishment.

Michael Stormbom
I mean, tthe lifespan of a building. I think that’s an important thing to consider, especially if we’re now building new things and smart buildings and sustainable buildings. Of course, you have to take into account like how long will that building be standing?

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Or how long will the technology…

Michael Stormbom
Or how long should it be standing in the first place?

Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah. Or how long will the technology inside the building last before it needs replacing?

Michael Stormbom
Five minutes.

Ian Bowie
We know but we know it. We know it in our undisclosed location. The number of apartment buildings which have undergone major renovations over the years is when they’re about 40 years old, perhaps.

Michael Stormbom
There seems to be like every 20 years or something.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, you know, major renovations that cost millions. And the residents have to basically fork up for this.

Michael Stormbom
We just had a nice little renovation in my apartment building,

Ian Bowie
Right. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Stormbom
But yeah, I mean, of course when they did that, renovation with the pipes, so then of course they also introduced this water measurement.

Ian Bowie
Right. Okay. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
Before that. You had to pat a fixed fee.

Ian Bowie
You’re talking about they introduce a meter.

Michael Stormbom
A meter. Yes.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So then you pay as you use.

Michael Stormbom
So they introduce that in the same go. Yeah. I believe it’s a legal requirement actually.

Ian Bowie
These days?

Michael Stormbom
These days.

Ian Bowie
Probably is,.

Michael Stormbom
But I mean, I think that’s part of it. We are talking about smart cities and smart buildings, and of course, measuring things is a key component of that.

Ian Bowie
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Measuring and controlling.

Michael Stormbom
Measuring and controlling.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. But of course, I mean, I suppose that begs the question of how much measuring and controlling do people really want in their lives? I mean, something else that I came across today, is the fact that Google now want to be able to listen to the noises in your house.

Michael Stormbom
Which sounds very, very creepy.

Ian Bowie
doesn’t it a bit? Yeah. But I mean, so that we talk to you, if they can hear the dog bark they know, right, okay, you know, there’s a potential to sell them some dog food or children playing into children playing or the toilet flushes a bit too often, then obviously, it’s straight down to the toilet paper company.

Michael Stormbom
Yes. Yeah. Or they can hear something scratching in the wall, and, aha, rats!

Ian Bowie
Get the rat catcher round straightaway. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
Yes. Yeah. We should, of course be a robot ratcatcher.

Ian Bowie
Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
From Google. Trademark.

Ian Bowie
Well, who knows what Google are into these days, but yeah, yeah. Or they can hear…

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, and of course, if they combine that audio information with everything else they have on you, because of course, Google knows everything about you know, you’re better than you know yourself.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. It’s a bit. I mean, you know, of course, if you think that they only have your, I can’t even keep a straight face when I say this, but your best interests at heart then there’s nothing to really sort of be too worried about, is there.

Michael Stormbom
No, if you genuinely believe that your best interests and their profit margin…

Ian Bowie
Excuse me while I laugh myself to death. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
If you believe that your best interest and their profit margin, that the interests aligns, then sure, why not?

Ian Bowie
Mind you, there is a move afoot by by the US government to now curb Google’s power.

Michael Stormbom
Maybe Google has so much information on the politicians that they don’t dare to do anything.

Ian Bowie
Well, that also as a possibility. Yeah, we’ve been listening to all your noises.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no one really spoke previously about Amazon buying Roomba and the concern about well, yeah, using them…

Ian Bowie
Hoovering up information.

Michael Stormbom
Quite literally.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. But it’s all gonna be part and parcel, isn’t it? I mean, you know, for example, these apartment buildings, because of course, that’s the only logical way to go with mega cities. You’ve got to build apartment buildings, you’re not going to have everybody in their own individual house.

Michael Stormbom
So if they’re going to be smart apartment buildings, the thing that’s going to be sensors up the wazoo.

Ian Bowie
They are going to be smart aren’t they. I mean, this is what they’re gonna build. Whether you like it or not, yeah, it’s all going to be smart. So yeah, it’ll come ready, equipped.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. And then there’s gonna be plenty of sensors monitoring.

Ian Bowie
I mean, it’s a bit like a throwback to the old Cold War, Soviet times when, you know, they had apartments that were all bugged. And they had hidden cameras behind the mirrors or in the light fixtures or something like that.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, now, we’re just more overt about it.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
No, I mean, if you have a smart television, you can speak to the television and it’s, you know, it’s listening to

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Fuck off.

Michael Stormbom
There’s a TV here in the studio, tht was the… the TV’s now listening and…

Ian Bowie
Everything’s listening to us.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, absolutely. Well, people are listening to us because we’re recording, literally.

Ian Bowie
We want people to listen to us. Yes. The sort of concept, the idea of a smart city is something I think that we can all adhere to. But we don’t necessarily want it to be too smart. And if it is going to be smart. It also needs to be transparent. Wouldn’t you agree?

Michael Stormbom
I would fully agree with that. I mean, smart cities essentially does mean monitoring.

Ian Bowie
Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
And which maybe will lead to the surveillance state or not. But I think that’s another thing as well that you need to…

Ian Bowie
well, maybe that’s a topic for another another podcast surveillance state. Or the state of surveillance. Yes.

Michael Stormbom
The state of surveillance of the state.

Ian Bowie
What is the state of surveillance in our current undisclosed location?

Michael Stormbom
Yes. Hopefully poor enough.

Ian Bowie
So with that, happy thought, folks, we should leave you for today.

Michael Stormbom
Yes, until next time.

Ian Bowie
You’ve been listening to me Ian Bowie, and my colleague, Michael Stormbom. On AI Unfiltered and for more episodes. Please go to aiunfiltered.com. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai