What are some of the pitfalls or dangers associated with a smart city?
Issue #1: Resilience
As we introduce more and more smart technologies, we build a society and ecosystem that is increasingly dependent on them. When there is a failure in the system, we are unable to find and alternative solution or go back to how it was in the past.
This problem is becoming acute in all cities because of the central dependence on digital technologies for managing all of the utilities, for the water, transport, and energy. As they are all linked together, a significant system failure could have unpredictable consequences.
The problem of resilience has now been recognized as something that urgently needs research. First - to understand the behavior of the system as a whole and the probability of failure. Second - how a less vulnerable system can be built, and if failure occurs, how damage can be minimized.
Issue #2: Two-tiered society
Younger people are able to grasp digital technology more quickly. In a society which is aging, it is extremely important that we don’t develop in a way that somehow separates older people out from many of these benefits. Much work will have to go into developing technologies which older people can use.
In addition, we must not move into a society which is effectively dehumanized, depending on technologies and essentially breaking up communities and social interactions.