A self-driving bus stops near Cheonggye Stream in Seoul's central district of Jongno. A slick and shiny mini bus moved smoothly toward the Cheonggye Plaza bus stop near Gwanghwamun Station, central Seoul. Four passengers, including this reporter, got on board. The vehicle with seven passenger seats had an airy, open feel, with an impressive panoramic glass roof and full-size windows on four sides. There was someone sitting in the driver's seat, but his hands never touched the steering wheel even as the bus started moving.

It might not be a surprise that some city governments are not only unnerved by it, they're regulating it. Some government officials are understandably worried about artificial intelligence programs taking away jobs -- but lately, some municipalities appear to be concerned that AI is being used to help people get jobs. For instance, New York City and the District of Columbia are among locales that are enacting or considering laws to restrict how employers utilize artificial intelligence programs in hiring and promoting decisions. If you're unaware of what is transpiring in the world of human resources, AI and city governments, here's what is at stake. Increasingly, recruiters and human resources departments have been using AI tools to help find job candidates by performing repetitive and time-consuming tasks like analyzing resumes, arranging interviews with job candidates, and scheduling job assessments.

The Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs has led the "Smart City Taiwan" project in response to the government's goal to promote industrial upgrading and transformation and smart technologies. Through public-private-people partnership mechanism, the Smart City Taiwan project utilizes smart technologies to drive smart services (healthcare, governance/safety, transportation, agriculture, education, and tourism and retail) in 22 cities/countries across Taiwan. As of today, about 300 businesses have participated in the project, offering 223 smart services to 8.54 million people. These smart services have successfully solved the pain points of the general public and have also been introduced to foreign countries. For young children, a variety of stimulant interactions can be triggers for learning.

Verdict lists the top five terms tweeted on future cities in Q2 2021, based on data from GlobalData's Influencer Platform. The top tweeted terms are the trending industry discussions happening on Twitter by key individuals (influencers) as tracked by the platform. The importance of analytics and visualisations for city governments, how smart cities can unlock the full potential of IoT, and the applications of IoT in smart cities and smart buildings were some of the trending discussions in Q2. Kirk Borne, data scientist at DataPrime, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions provider, shared an article on the importance of analytics and visualisation for city governments. Government policymakers are required to collect and store data to ensure data privacy across organisations and to enable the provision of services that boost the economy.

This week, TechCrunch is turning its spotlight on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with interviews, profiles, and an event featuring the outgoing mayor, CMU's President, and local startups. The Rust Belt city has spent much of the past decade working to shed the image that arrived in the wake of the deindustrialization of the 1970s and 80s. Courtesy of world class universities like Carnegie Melon and the University of Pittsburgh, the Steel City has transformed itself into a vibrant startup ecosystem and a world class environment for robotics, AI, autonomous driving and other high-tech companies. Ahead of tomorrow's event, TechCrunch spoke to Bill Peduto, who has served as Pittsburgh's Mayor since 2014, a role that has involved overseeing much of that transformation. The Mayor spoke on his efforts over the past half-dozen years, which will culminate in January when he leaves office.

In February, the outreach director for an organization called Communities Against Rider Surveillance wrote to Evan Greer. CARS wanted to know if Fight for the Future, a nonprofit digital-rights advocacy group where Greer is the deputy director, would join, and allow itself to be listed as a member of the newly formed coalition. "CARS is a new coalition working to raise awareness of a dangerous technology called Mobility Data Specification," the email from outreach director Rich Dunn read. "In the wrong hands, the information collected by MDS poses grave privacy and safety risks." MDS is a technical specification created by Los Angeles' Department of Transportation, now managed by a third-party foundation.

New York City is hiring. The city earlier this month unveiled a description of its new Algorithms Management Policy Officer role. But some worry the creation of a procedural position forced to maneuver within an arguably flawed bureaucratic structure only perpetuates the city's imperfect approach to developing policy for government AI use. "It appears this role will simply provide a rubber stamp to current and future use of [Automated Decision Systems] without evaluating or even attempting to address known concerns with ADS currently used by city agencies," Rashida Richardson, director of policy research at the AI Now Institute at NYU and a critic of the city's task force, told RedTail. "This role is unique in urban governance and is intended to help provide protocols and information about the systems and tools City agencies use to make decisions," the city said in a statement.

It's time for city administrations and local employers to close AI-related skills gaps. This article is part of an MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. While there is much discussion of how artificial intelligence will continue to transform industries and organizations, a key driver of AI's role in the global economy will be cities. How cities deal with coming changes will determine which ones will thrive in the future. Many cities have plans to become "smart cities" armed with AI-driven processes and services, like AI-based traffic control systems, to improve residents' lives.

It's clear that a lot of action to reduce emissions and climate change will play out in urban areas, where most people in the world live, and an even higher proportion of economic activity happens. Save the city, save the world. But it's hard to make a substantial change to how a city runs. Successful cities are generally already going through continual change. Failing cities generally aren't managing to change to meet new conditions.

There is great potential for the use of Artificial intelligence (AI) by cities. With the help of AI, we can provide more responsive services to citizens. However, AI poses ethical issues that need special attention, as Chief Digital Officers of London and Helsinki here we explain why and suggest an approach for city government. The use of automation and machine learning systems is not a new phenomenon in public administration, but it is being transformed in how it is being used -- from automating simple transactions to more complex problem-solving. Today we see adoption across a range of municipal services -- chatbots in customer services, prioritisation of housing repairs, traffic signalling, demand-responsive transport, even library book management systems.