Computer Models for Social Change

Join us on Wednesday, December 20 at 12:00 (EST) as Geothink will host its fourth Geothink&Learn video conference session on our launch of the Open Data Standards Directory.

Speakers include myself, as converner, Rachel Bloom, a project manager of Open Smart Cities in Canada at OpenNorth; Andrew Nicklin, GovEx Director of Data Practices; Nicolas Levy, a McGill University undergraduate student in Urban Systems and Geographic Information Science (GIS); and, Julia Conzon, who will join Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) as a Data Statistical Analysis Officer in January 2018.

“There’s a serious need for coordination on how governments at all levels classify different types of open data”. The McGill Reporter writes about our work on open data standards.

We welcome back Vicky Slonosky to our lab. Vicky leads our citizen science project, DRAW (Data Rescue and Archives for Weather), in which people can help us transcribe the longest continuous weather record in Canada. Vicky's book, Climate in the Age of Empire, comes out in February.

Thursday we continued with our Geothink & Learn Seminars. This time, it was Governing Artificial Intelligence, with me, Pamela Robinson, Fenwick McKelvey, and Elizabeth Judge.

Abstract: Cities worldwide are seeing a rapid expansion in the promotion of artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithms to assist in governance. While AI is often heralded as a means of optimizing and making more efficient various domains of city-citizen interactions (such as transportation, real-time citizen notifications, predicting urban change), many of its promises and threats have been hyperbolized in popular media. This panel will bring together leading academic experts to discuss the opportunities, challenges, and implications of this transition as they apply to cities and citizens, with a focus on governance and policy in a Canadian context.

What are the emerging AI shifts to city planning and design? How is AI shaping governments and governance? What are the current factors shaping AI policy? How do we hold AI accountable, especially when we don’t know how AI works? What is the impact of public-private partnerships that emerge out of AI and smart city adoption? What are the social implications of AI, and how can we better regulate to prevent bias?

Here are the eleven 2017 GEOG 506, Advanced GIScience, presentations Dec 7th and 11th.