WEBVTT 00:07.660 --> 00:12.640 So, many, many thanks for two, I think, very complimentary 00:12.640 --> 00:13.580 presentations. 00:14.040 --> 00:19.700 I am not going to talk because I know Evgeny has to go for his taxi in 00:19.700 --> 00:20.660 15 minutes. 00:21.100 --> 00:24.380 So, I'm going to ask the two of you just to have a conversation, 00:25.580 --> 00:30.400 comment on each other's presentation and see are there parts where you 00:30.400 --> 00:33.600 are different, you would analyse the situation of smart cities 00:33.600 --> 00:34.100 differently. 00:35.300 --> 00:36.360 Just go ahead. 00:37.320 --> 00:38.100 Who would like to start? 00:40.160 --> 00:42.560 I have a question. 00:43.900 --> 00:51.460 So, the question I have is, suppose we do have this moment of insight 00:51.460 --> 00:54.860 and we all develop holistic thinking about the smart cities. 00:56.780 --> 01:01.680 What else would it take to fight the trends that have made it a 01:01.680 --> 01:02.080 reality? 01:02.240 --> 01:06.140 And I would argue that it's not just ideas, that we are full of bad 01:06.140 --> 01:10.820 ideas, that we all love efficiency and this is why cities are turning 01:10.820 --> 01:16.540 to companies to do more and more and that they are opting in for the 01:16.540 --> 01:16.980 solutions. 01:16.980 --> 01:22.960 Clearly, there are political and economic trends informing what's 01:22.960 --> 01:23.300 happening. 01:24.080 --> 01:29.640 And to what extent do you think there is any kind of vision for what 01:29.640 --> 01:33.520 to be done other than embracing complexity and holistic thinking? 01:34.380 --> 01:37.900 And whether you see any social movement emerging that can actually 01:37.900 --> 01:42.660 take these issues and turn them into a political program and if so, 01:42.740 --> 01:47.620 who are the allies, if any, that you see who are currently in power or 01:47.620 --> 01:48.160 out of power? 01:48.540 --> 01:50.360 I couldn't share the last part. 01:50.880 --> 01:52.520 I just noticed the time was too short. 01:53.300 --> 01:55.480 But I think, first of all, holistic thinking. 01:55.940 --> 02:00.300 Just to be clear, I don't think anymore that we can just sit and do 02:00.300 --> 02:00.720 thinking. 02:00.840 --> 02:04.140 We have to do and we have to get out of our homes and actually get 02:04.140 --> 02:04.720 involved. 02:05.340 --> 02:08.300 And that's why you have to bring down the barrier to participation and 02:08.300 --> 02:11.160 reduce the friction in the system by making it much more interesting 02:11.160 --> 02:13.840 and fun so it doesn't feel like you're sitting in a neighbourhood 02:13.840 --> 02:14.380 meeting. 02:14.820 --> 02:17.020 And I think that is the problem currently is the civic participation 02:17.700 --> 02:21.480 models that we are given by the government, by local authorities is 02:21.480 --> 02:21.780 broken. 02:22.380 --> 02:25.320 And if you look at other forms of participation that people do online, 02:25.700 --> 02:28.580 whether they are spending too much time on Facebook or other more 02:28.580 --> 02:31.180 entertaining services, and I think it's a problem of the user 02:31.180 --> 02:31.680 experience. 02:32.180 --> 02:33.980 You give the example of the app in Finland. 02:34.120 --> 02:35.360 I've lived in Finland myself. 02:35.360 --> 02:39.380 The problem with many of these tech for good stuff or social impact 02:39.380 --> 02:43.100 stuff is unless it's designed in a compelling manner and the user 02:43.100 --> 02:44.820 experience is really good, that's the first part. 02:44.940 --> 02:47.820 People will at least try for it and then give it benefit of doubt. 02:48.260 --> 02:51.860 But I think you raise a better, a more important question about the 02:51.860 --> 02:54.580 actual, you know, who's going to take this forward, who's going to 02:54.580 --> 02:57.600 make the policy changes and how are we going to create some of the 02:57.600 --> 03:00.100 governance, who's going to own the data and who's going to have the 03:00.100 --> 03:01.560 cloud, who's going to have access to the cloud. 03:02.060 --> 03:05.560 And I think this is where being in the EU is quite useful, because 03:05.560 --> 03:09.260 there are quite a few Horizon 2020 projects which are looking at the 03:09.260 --> 03:13.020 personal data store, for example, for Telecom Italia, where people can 03:13.020 --> 03:16.780 look at the provenance of their data, how far it goes into the 03:16.780 --> 03:17.100 database. 03:17.680 --> 03:21.360 We have things like Ethereum, which is like a kind of a protocol 03:21.360 --> 03:22.340 coming out of Bitcoin. 03:22.740 --> 03:25.500 There's people trying to see other forms of social contracts. 03:25.860 --> 03:30.060 So I feel you're much better off in Europe than being in the US and 03:30.060 --> 03:34.060 trying out some of these kind of much more social or community-based 03:34.060 --> 03:34.540 services. 03:35.020 --> 03:38.960 But ultimately I think the government has to do something overall in 03:38.960 --> 03:42.800 terms of the end user license agreement with citizens when they sign 03:42.800 --> 03:46.160 up for commercial providers like Google and Facebook, because I think 03:46.160 --> 03:48.620 that citizen cannot really mandate. 03:48.940 --> 03:50.800 So that's a lot of government work there. 03:51.980 --> 03:57.620 I think before you comment on the comment, one question I would like 03:57.620 --> 04:02.060 to bring in, because I think it's important, is as you said, of 04:02.060 --> 04:07.620 course, we have such rapid change with what's happening within smart 04:07.620 --> 04:08.000 cities. 04:08.700 --> 04:13.000 And within the European context, we are an ageing society. 04:13.760 --> 04:18.180 So we do have a sort of ongoing question of digital divide. 04:19.320 --> 04:23.560 So I've just asked, maybe in your project you have already had some 04:23.560 --> 04:28.360 kind of experience with this, but is this one thing that we have to 04:28.360 --> 04:29.500 look at policy thing. 04:29.740 --> 04:32.780 On the one hand, of course, maybe if we can have a car that would 04:32.780 --> 04:35.160 drive us without us having to do anything. 04:35.260 --> 04:37.820 My university is a lot in that area as well. 04:38.320 --> 04:43.440 We become more mobile and we have chances as an elderly or an ageing 04:43.440 --> 04:43.960 society. 04:44.340 --> 04:47.880 But we have to be able to understand data. 04:48.400 --> 04:50.900 We have to understand what sensors are doing with us. 04:51.440 --> 04:57.680 And we have to understand how to really constructively use the new 04:57.680 --> 04:58.280 possibilities. 04:59.500 --> 05:03.220 Maybe I can just ask you both to sort of draw that into one of the 05:03.220 --> 05:03.560 questions. 05:04.640 --> 05:05.080 Sure. 05:05.200 --> 05:09.920 I mean, there is clearly the need for all of us to become more aware 05:09.920 --> 05:11.040 and technologically literate. 05:11.160 --> 05:13.340 I mean, that I think is obvious to all of us in the room. 05:13.700 --> 05:16.680 I think the other danger, though, is almost the very opposite. 05:17.080 --> 05:22.100 If you think about the way in which many of the smart environments are 05:22.100 --> 05:26.260 designed, and I'm here thinking specifically of various projects now 05:26.260 --> 05:32.360 that design what they would call for ambient assistant living, for 05:32.360 --> 05:32.760 example. 05:33.180 --> 05:35.100 I mean, they are meant actually for old people. 05:35.360 --> 05:41.480 And the idea there is that your apartment is so full of sensors that 05:41.480 --> 05:43.760 it understands and anticipates everything you do. 05:43.960 --> 05:48.280 So, you know, if it senses that you want to open the window a little 05:48.280 --> 05:51.160 bit too much, it will prevent you from doing that because it has 05:51.160 --> 05:53.200 recognized that maybe it's not a good idea. 05:53.640 --> 05:57.680 And my fear is that, you know, this is their paradigm according to 05:57.680 --> 06:00.020 which everything else is being redesigned. 06:00.300 --> 06:03.340 So essentially we're all treated as old people who are about to do 06:03.340 --> 06:05.520 something, you know, that might not be in our best interest. 06:05.800 --> 06:09.460 It's the same with the smart car that will not let you start if it 06:09.460 --> 06:14.740 senses that you are tired or, you know, you might be mentally unstable 06:14.740 --> 06:18.200 for driving today, so it will not let you even start the ignition. 06:18.520 --> 06:21.680 I mean, that to me is at a very basic level of freedoms. 06:22.300 --> 06:25.500 That's very, I mean, it's very ugly. 06:25.680 --> 06:29.460 I mean, I don't want to live in a world where there is no basic 06:29.460 --> 06:30.620 freedom to exercise. 06:30.620 --> 06:34.560 I just want to add, I mean, as a designer and having designed these 06:34.560 --> 06:37.900 systems for a while and also now working with the British Standard 06:37.900 --> 06:40.340 Institute, designing the standard for some of the smart city 06:40.340 --> 06:45.220 framework, first of all, I personally think it's quite easy to get 06:45.220 --> 06:48.180 scared about many of these things because it's not very simple, these 06:48.180 --> 06:49.700 technologies, like a black box. 06:49.980 --> 06:53.760 So when you do not understand what it is and you don't trust it either 06:53.760 --> 06:56.880 on who's developing it or what's happening to their data, it's easier 06:56.880 --> 07:01.440 to create an even more, what do you call, dystopian idea around it. 07:01.820 --> 07:06.060 Having said that, some of the assistive environments, it's now clearly 07:06.060 --> 07:09.820 proved, like I was there in the ISDA conference two weeks ago in San 07:09.820 --> 07:12.040 Francisco, and it's clearly proved that you don't want things to be 07:12.040 --> 07:12.860 self -automated. 07:13.320 --> 07:16.140 It's actually quite dangerous for, it's like in the airplanes, the 07:16.140 --> 07:20.260 reason there's been quite a few crashes is the pilots do not know how 07:20.260 --> 07:23.240 to actually go on manual when everything is automated. 07:23.240 --> 07:26.320 And the same thing is going to happen with cars because if you have 07:26.320 --> 07:29.400 self -driving cars and suddenly forget what to do should there be an 07:29.400 --> 07:32.140 accident, you wouldn't even have the skills to correct it. 07:32.260 --> 07:35.900 So currently there are new kind of systems coming up where they want 07:35.900 --> 07:38.060 the human and the system to collaborate. 07:38.260 --> 07:41.280 It's not about who's going to automate more and whether the machine is 07:41.280 --> 07:45.060 going to take over the human, it's how do both people come together in 07:45.060 --> 07:49.220 order to create a better outcome as against each person competing with 07:49.220 --> 07:49.700 each other. 07:50.040 --> 07:52.640 And I think that's what's getting interesting now with the studies 07:52.640 --> 07:56.660 done that they had a human working together with Deep Blue and they 07:56.660 --> 08:01.140 managed to actually do a much better, they managed to defeat Deep Blue 08:01.140 --> 08:04.240 versus just a human alone or a machine alone. 08:04.340 --> 08:07.240 And I think this is where we need to get out of some of this dystopian 08:07.240 --> 08:10.860 way of thinking and really take the bear by the whatever and just say 08:10.860 --> 08:14.820 okay, this is the complexity, let's prototype it and take simple 08:14.820 --> 08:17.720 experiments step by step because or else we're all going to be 08:17.720 --> 08:18.380 scaremongering. 08:21.500 --> 08:23.140 Evgeny, want to comment on that? 08:24.220 --> 08:28.300 What about the whole issue of the empowerment and through the control 08:28.300 --> 08:29.820 and the ownership of data? 08:31.040 --> 08:34.400 Is that going to remain an issue or I think with many of these 08:34.400 --> 08:39.620 questions which are very political, very sensitive, but then we tend 08:39.620 --> 08:43.280 to get used to a kind of a state of affairs which we should better not 08:43.280 --> 08:46.920 get used to and we don't really do anything about it. 08:46.920 --> 08:48.340 What would you think about that? 08:48.360 --> 08:51.180 I wish it were, as you said, it would remain an issue. 08:51.300 --> 08:52.900 I don't think it is an issue for most people. 08:53.020 --> 08:57.460 Most people would not even realize that there is a basic political and 08:57.460 --> 09:00.960 economic question here of who owns the data that they generate and 09:00.960 --> 09:04.700 also whether it should be treated as a commodity that could be bought 09:04.700 --> 09:05.600 and sold in the market. 09:05.980 --> 09:09.700 That also is not obvious to most people because the current sort of 09:09.700 --> 09:13.260 opposition to Silicon Valley's claims that they own all of our data 09:13.260 --> 09:16.620 because they provide those wonderful services, their opposition to it 09:16.620 --> 09:19.680 is to claim that, well, we own our data and we should be able to sell 09:19.680 --> 09:22.000 it back to those companies and make money off of it. 09:22.320 --> 09:25.240 And I'm not sure I like that vision either because if you think about 09:25.240 --> 09:28.800 it very deeply, it means that virtually everything that you do in your 09:28.800 --> 09:31.980 daily life now becomes a target for auctioning. 09:32.160 --> 09:35.660 You can go and sell the song that you're singing in the shower this 09:35.660 --> 09:38.960 morning to the manufacturer of your shampoo because of course they 09:38.960 --> 09:42.040 would be eager to know this data to build a better shampoo to 09:42.040 --> 09:43.160 advertise more effectively. 09:43.660 --> 09:47.540 And if that's the paradigm, that we all become everyday perpetual 09:47.540 --> 09:49.560 participants in some kind of global auction. 09:49.680 --> 09:51.460 And that's not a vision of life I want to have. 09:51.740 --> 09:55.640 And then the question is, how can we make sure that the data that we 09:55.640 --> 09:59.040 generate can still be used by us and some of the communities we belong 09:59.040 --> 10:02.100 to, whether it's neighborhoods or cities, but it is not reduced 10:02.100 --> 10:04.980 necessarily to an asset that has a value not to be traded. 10:05.380 --> 10:08.300 Because that other option, it might seem emancipatory because it 10:08.300 --> 10:12.180 lessens our dependence on Google and Facebook, but it might actually 10:12.180 --> 10:15.140 be much worse if you think about the ultimate consequences of pursuing 10:15.140 --> 10:16.240 it to its ultimate conclusions. 10:17.340 --> 10:18.980 What does a designer say to that? 10:19.560 --> 10:20.960 I think build it, ship it. 10:21.280 --> 10:24.920 That's the only way to learn because, like I said, I think it's 10:24.920 --> 10:28.760 extremely important for us to start, that's why we're teaching lots of 10:28.760 --> 10:31.480 people different kind of skills, putting these workshops because we 10:31.480 --> 10:35.080 want to demystify what the technologies, what the sensors are, and 10:35.080 --> 10:37.940 ultimately if you've all played with Lego as kids and we've built 10:37.940 --> 10:42.100 things, we've built houses when we were small kids, we can also use 10:42.100 --> 10:45.200 these technologies to understand how these larger systems work. 10:45.540 --> 10:49.320 So I think it's actually a lost in translation thing where we need to 10:49.320 --> 10:53.420 democratize and make these technologies fun and easy so people want to 10:53.420 --> 10:55.720 give it a go, like if you've got a grandson or granddaughter, you 10:55.720 --> 10:58.500 bring an electronics kit, you sit together and you build something in 10:58.500 --> 11:00.360 an afternoon, which I've done with my folks. 11:00.860 --> 11:03.360 So it's something that is quite fun and then you can have that 11:03.360 --> 11:06.460 discussion as a family or as a group of friends saying, what does this 11:06.460 --> 11:06.780 mean? 11:07.220 --> 11:09.940 And then start and build something together because that's what we're 11:09.940 --> 11:14.320 doing right now in Sheffield, we're working with Amy who owns 11:14.320 --> 11:18.800 Ferrovial with 2,000 cyclists to create a wearable air pollution 11:18.800 --> 11:21.880 sensor for their bikes and creating a trial so people can come 11:21.880 --> 11:24.280 together, own their data and see how they can troubleshoot the 11:24.280 --> 11:24.700 infrastructure. 11:25.660 --> 11:29.700 Maybe a last question to the two of you because I know Evgeny's going 11:29.700 --> 11:31.360 to have to run for his taxi. 11:31.360 --> 11:40.040 How are smarter cities going to affect the cohesion of the city as a 11:40.040 --> 11:40.400 whole? 11:40.840 --> 11:42.540 I mean, we've been talking, your projects are more sort of 11:42.540 --> 11:47.980 neighbourhood projects, but the cohesion of a city as a whole, because 11:47.980 --> 11:53.340 we know from internet that in fact social media is used mostly locally 11:53.340 --> 11:58.320 and not really for international communication, of course also. 11:58.320 --> 12:04.600 But the main sort of thrust of social media is very local. 12:05.220 --> 12:10.420 If you take what I've said in earnest, then I would oppose the 12:10.420 --> 12:12.980 paradigm of the smart city that's being imposed by a bunch of 12:12.980 --> 12:13.740 technology companies. 12:13.920 --> 12:18.080 If you think outside of that framework, you can of course think of, as 12:18.080 --> 12:22.140 I've said, of sensors and databases and algorithms powering far more 12:22.140 --> 12:25.240 solidarity -based, collective solutions to problems. 12:25.240 --> 12:28.980 The way in which this framework is being imposed right now, it favours 12:28.980 --> 12:33.720 the individual consumer getting services provided to him or her by a 12:33.720 --> 12:36.860 bunch of companies that hide beneath the label of the smart city. 12:37.260 --> 12:37.900 That's what's happening. 12:38.140 --> 12:42.140 So in that sense, I don't see much cohesion there. 12:42.320 --> 12:45.440 I mean, it's the same kind of cohesion you see in the marketplace. 12:45.900 --> 12:49.520 It's not very cohesive unless you're auctioning together for something 12:49.520 --> 12:50.360 and you form a group. 12:50.360 --> 12:57.120 So in that sense, but again, we don't have to stick with that vision. 12:57.280 --> 13:02.020 It's the only way in which devices, databases, gadgets, sensors can 13:02.020 --> 13:04.380 make us live better. 13:04.820 --> 13:08.700 And this is where I think what's lacking right now is political and 13:08.700 --> 13:10.800 social imagination, and not the technological one. 13:10.900 --> 13:12.480 Technological imagination is here already. 13:12.960 --> 13:17.240 We just lack the ability to think of ways and also the kind of 13:17.240 --> 13:19.980 political interventions that would be needed to make that 13:19.980 --> 13:22.400 infrastructure work for citizens and not just for the companies. 13:23.220 --> 13:24.980 Last question, digital divide. 13:25.060 --> 13:28.620 Do you think that with a younger generation of politicians and policy 13:28.620 --> 13:32.100 makers coming up that we will see a change? 13:33.360 --> 13:34.300 I disagree. 13:34.600 --> 13:37.140 I think the older generation is actually quite tech savvy as well. 13:37.620 --> 13:40.080 They were actually early adopters when many other people. 13:40.160 --> 13:42.220 I think the younger generation has been using iPads. 13:42.540 --> 13:45.420 The older generation actually learned some programming, so I'm very 13:45.420 --> 13:46.760 happy working the older generation. 13:46.760 --> 13:50.720 And the second thing also is in terms of the cities themselves, I 13:50.720 --> 13:56.000 think there needs to be a first level better interoperability between 13:56.000 --> 13:57.320 cities and the systems. 13:57.720 --> 14:00.900 I think it's all very nice talking smart cities, but ultimately many 14:00.900 --> 14:02.900 of these things fail in the last mile. 14:03.260 --> 14:06.540 Hence, if you don't have those common standards and common objects, 14:06.820 --> 14:10.260 and then also tap on people's intelligence together, it's not that 14:10.260 --> 14:12.900 technology alone, like you said earlier, is going to solve the 14:12.900 --> 14:13.180 problem. 14:13.240 --> 14:15.580 And it requires some imagination from the government as well. 14:18.970 --> 14:19.390 Okay. 14:19.390 --> 14:22.030 Last word for Evgeny before he goes for his taxi. 14:22.370 --> 14:24.510 I wish there was a drone to take me there, but no. 14:26.990 --> 14:29.390 Okay, I think we just leave it there. 14:30.190 --> 14:32.250 Thank you very much, both of you. 14:32.850 --> 14:35.830 And thank you, of course, for Evgeny coming all the way from Berlin. 14:35.970 --> 14:36.870 Have to meet back again.