Data Spaces and democracy

"We are already becoming tiny chips inside a giant system that nobody really understands." So wrote Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari about our current experience of urban living, which, increasingly, is mediated by AI. AI is now an important component of sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, public administration and transportation, and is helping to address major challenges such as ageing and climate change. However, there is currently a lack of transparency in algorithmic governance systems, and this is worsened when these algorithms are integrated into already opaque governance structures in our cities. Moreover, over the past decade, the propagation of sensors and data collection machines in so-called'smart cities' by both the public and the private sectors has created democratic challenges around AI, surveillance capitalism, and protecting citizens' digital rights to privacy and ownership.