02.546 Creating the Frontiers of the No-Code Smart City

For far too long, the smart city has emphasized smart technology over smart people. With Gen AI, especially no-code Gen AI, we can finally move the emphasis back to smart citizens creating the future of the smart city.

But first, students will need to grasp the power and perils of AI in the years to come. It is after all the technology of our times. They will need to grasp the power and perils of AI in the context of how and why leaders design, build, and manage an economically competitive, socially inclusive, and technologically astute city and citizenry. They will also need to grasp – literally – the power and perils of AI through hands-on designing with no-code AI.

Our class topics will hence span topics from strategy to stories, resilience to reskilling, and infrastructure to industrial revolution. To give our students a foundation of first principles and experiences they can build on, the coming semester’s class will revolve around five questions fundamental to every city.

The five key questions – each of which will span at least two classes – are:

• Week 1: Introduction
• Week 2+3: What is Strategy and Why Does it Matter to the Smart City I and II
• Week 4+5: What is AI/Technology and What Is Different (or Same) This Time I and II
• Week 6 + 8: What Do We Really Mean When We Say We Are People-Centric I and II
(Week 7: Term break)
• Week 9+10: How Change Happens and Can We Really Know When It Happens I and II
• Week 11+12: Can Everyone Innovate Or Can An Innovator Come From Anywhere I and II
• Week 13: Synthesis and Reflection

Discussing and answering each of the five questions will see the class engaging in three stages:
1) First Principles: Readings to develop relevant key concepts and the underlying first principles.
2) AI Lenses: Discussions on how AI changes (or not) how we answer those questions.
3) Hands-on: Designing with AI to understand and experience – and build expertise about – how we can better understand the questions and find good answers.

The aspiration for the hands-on work with the instructor(s) will be to push the frontiers of what citizens can create for the smart city using no-code Gen AI (and AI and other tech in general). We go beyond the simplistic – sometimes gimmicky – generation of text, code, images etc to embedding this task of generation into the process and system of designing solutions for people. Where available, these solutions will be tested with partners and stakeholders with real needs, and a substantial portion of the grades will be based on how well those needs are met.

This course is thus a hands-on course in turning insights into creations. By the end of the course, we want to make possible what was once impossible (e.g. see Six Impossibles), and develop a sublime sophisticated new understanding of where smart cities are limited and/or limitless (e.g. Limit and Limitless).

Instructor: Poon King Wang
Time: Wednesday (10am to 1pm)
Venue: Think Tank 1 (1.308)