Page 10 - U4SSC Guiding principles for artificial intelligence in cities

Executive summary

The United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative is a leading platform for supporting smart
sustainable cities worldwide. The U4SSC is coordinated by the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the United Nations
Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) along with the support of other 16 United Nations
agencies and programmes and has developed strategic guidelines and tools that aim to assist
prospective smart sustainable cities in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Guiding Principles for AI in Cities provides a broad set of suggested principles, enablers,
governance methods, policy instrument alternatives and a simple methodology for instilling AI
principles in cities.

The first section provides a brief introduction to urbanization and its high-level challenges. The
second section emphasizes the significance of AI principles for ethical use of AI in cities. It also
clarifies the scope of this document. The third section contains a set of principles which cities can
employ in their AI implementations.

The fourth section encompasses four categories of enablers which cities can utilize to help in their
AI principles implementation. The fifth section introduces governance alternatives of regulatory,
executive and compliance roles for AI principles implementation.

The sixth section provides policy instrument alternatives for implementing AI principles in cities.
The seventh section provides a simple four step methodology for implementing AI principles in
cities. Last, but not the least, the eighth section concludes with some observations for AI principles
implementations in real life.

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