Aging, artificial intelligence, and the built environment in smart cities: Ethical considerations

Abstract

Increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI) is being utilized in urban planning and integrated into the built environment (BE) of urban centres, creating ‘smart cities’ (SC). However, the ethical and legal implications of this trend for the growing elderly population in urban areas are often overlooked. While AI-supported SC may offer resource-efficient management and services for older adults, they also risk excluding a significant portion of this demographic. This paper addresses ethical concerns for older adults in AI-supported SC, drawing from an ethics perspective that combines traditional ethical principles (beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, justice) with AI ethics (explicability, transparency). Three examples of non-healthcare SC-AI-BE interactions are provided, aiming to generate ethical discussions within the gerontechnology field. The paper concludes with suggested avenues for empirical research and ethical deliberation.