Rethinking the Subject of Urban AI: From Autonomy to Cognitive Ecologies

Much has been written about the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on cities, from governance and mobility to surveillance and labour. Far less attention, however, has been afforded to the conceptual premises that underpin these analyses. What assumptions about intelligence, autonomy, or agency shape such accounts, and how is the human subject invoked in relation to technology? This talk adopts a critical posthumanist perspective to rethink human–technology relations in the context of urban AI. Drawing on the work of Braidotti, Latour, and Hayles, it suggests that revisiting these concepts unsettles conventional framings of urban AI and multiplies the sites, actors, and relations that matter to its politics. This reorientation, I propose, opens up new ethico-political questions, moving beyond what AI does to cities and toward how cities, humans, and technologies co-constitute one another in urban cognitive ecologies.

Held by: 

Fabio Iapaolo (Polytechnic University of Milan)