Smart Cities With a Human Face

The session was moderated by Dmitry Ontoev, Adviser to the Head of the Moscow Department of Information Technology. “Digital technologies are changing how residents interact not only with the city but also with one another. In effect, they are creating a new paradigm, a new logic for human communication,” he said at the start of the discussion.

The range and quality of electronic services are indeed expanding by the day. In Moscow, for example, residents can access more than 460 services online through the Mos.ru portal. Muscovites no longer have to queue at clinics or museum ticket offices; they can take care of everyday tasks online. Seventy percent of city residents spend more than six hours a day looking at their smartphone screens. This certainly saves time, but it also creates new risks that our ancestors could hardly have imagined at the end of the 20th century.

Ontoev framed the central question for the panelists this way: How can new technologies free up time for human interaction rather than replace it? Another concern is whether people can trust the information their devices deliver to them every minute.

Tatyana Matveeva, Head of the Presidential Directorate for the Development of Information and Communication Technologies and Communications Infrastructure, cited a survey by the Higher School of Economics showing that 74% of Russians begin tackling everyday tasks by opening a search engine. But all search engines now have AI built in, generating answers to users’ queries. “We are undoubtedly becoming increasingly dependent on the opinions and decisions that AI suggests to us,” Matveeva stressed.

This raises the question of how to regulate neural networks and make the technology safe and subject to oversight. Russia is already working in this direction. In addition to its National Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence, the country has adopted a Code of Ethics in AI. Developers recognize that they are responsible for how AI services behave, and 1,336 organizations have already signed on to the code.

Another point raised during the session was that digital tools should not be an end in themselves. Their purpose is to improve people’s quality of life. As Edlam Abera Yemeru, Director of the Knowledge and Innovation Branch at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), put it, smart cities need to “acquire a human face.”

“Technology is advancing rapidly, but people’s needs are not changing nearly as fast. IT solutions should adapt to longstanding problems, such as access to drinking water and safety. We have not seen any major improvements in how we address these problems using digital technologies,” she said.

Yemeru also noted that 51% of public-sector managers struggle to engage communities in smart-city development initiatives. In her view, the digital divide between countries is not caused by technology itself, but by the fact that a substantial share of the population in some countries simply lacks the skills to use it.

Vat Chun, Secretary of State at Cambodia’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, said his country is working with UNESCO to improve digital literacy. Residents’ documents, including educational diplomas and driver’s licenses, carry QR codes. Paying by phone and ordering a taxi through an app have also become familiar and popular practices in Cambodia.

Mauritania has digitized many public services as well, said Khadeejatou El Heda, Director of the Department of Administration Modernization at the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Administration Modernization. In this largely desert country, authorities are introducing a system that uses special geocodes to pinpoint locations for the delivery of digital services.

Few people at the discussion have more firsthand experience of how technology works in different parts of the world than Fedor Konyukhov. The renowned traveler said that many of his discoveries had been made possible by digital technology. Although he does not speak the languages of the people he meets, he can communicate with them freely using a translation app on his smartphone, connecting with everyday life in remote corners of the planet.

Digital technologies are undoubtedly a force for good, then, but only when they address concrete human needs and people use them thoughtfully and for a clear purpose.