Marta Galceran-Vercher
Social and technological innovation is crucial for responding to people’s needs and moving towards more inclusive and equitable local governments. Break-through technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) open up new opportunities for improving the provision of public services and managing some of the more urgent problems, among them sustainable mobility, energy transition, responsible use of water, and pollution reduction. In the coming years increasing use of AI will lead to transformation of the various branches of public administration, which will need to be prepared to deal with new challenges and risks associated with extensive use of algorithmic systems. It should be borne in mind, moreover, that local governments have a double responsibility as both “consumers” of technological solutions and “regulators” which must guarantee the development of a safe, ethical framework that would respect the laws currently in force, be compatible with social and cultural norms, and put people at the centre.
In this regard, the PAM 2024-2027 (Metropolitan Action Plan of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona) has pinpointed AI as one of the main focuses of future metropolitan policies. Metropolitan cities must be prepared to adopt algorithm-based solutions and to manage the risks this might entail, but they must also promote policy measures that would allow them to compete, and to attract and retain talent in order to advance the consolidation of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area as a digital metropolis. All this should be done bearing in mind the regulatory context in which they operate which, in future, will be conditioned by the recently approved EU Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (known as the AI Act), and also by geopolitical trends on the global scale.
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