Booz Allen Hamilton has posted the full video (and transcript) from “The Age of Principled AI” event and discussion in Washington D.C. on November 6th I had the pleasure of moderating on behalf of Fast Company. Click above to watch.

Fast Company reviews Renewing the Dream: The Mobility Revolution and the Future of Los Angeles — the new book edited by my friend James Sanders and published by Rizzoli — and is kind enough to quote me amongst a murderer’s row of contributors:

Today, LA is still choked with vehicles, but according to Ducharme from Woods Bagot, it is also teeming with potential. Because LA County isn’t just about cars. It’s also “the epicenter of a mobility revolution that is making, unmaking, and remaking the way we all live and move,” as author Greg Lindsay puts it in an essay featured in the book.

Meanwhile, New York Magazine’s architecture critic Justin Davidson has published his own 2,000-word glowing review over at Curbed, where he captures the book’s central theme succinctly:

Glossily illustrated, lucidly written, and thoroughly reported, the book makes an argument that is simple yet — pardon the expression — seismic: Many drivers would happily ride a bike, grab a scooter, even ride a bus, if only those choices were safe, quick, and convenient. Unfortunately, Americans find themselves in an existential traffic jam, locked in their cars, unable to ditch them and walk.

Davidson goes on to namecheck several projects I’ve had the pleasure of working on with James, including 2018’s “More LA” — imagining how the city might look if its surface parking lots are redeveloped — and “From Pump to Plug,” our submission to a competition to redesign Southern California’s gas station sites. Read the whole — or better yet, buy the book! — for more.

As the holiday slowdown approaches, so does my travel for speaking…barely. After an uncharacteristically quiet spring, I’ve been back on the road this fall at full throttle, melding my latest dispatches on the future of cities with new talks on generative AI, The Metaverse Metropolis, climate change, and more. As the first snow of the season descends on Montréal (where I’m living full-time again following the conclusion of my Cornell Tech fellowship) here’s a quick recap of where I’ve been and a preview of where I’m headed in the waning weeks of 2023:

• The season began in September with a lunch keynote at URMIA — the largest annual gathering of university chief risk officers — to discuss why they shouldn’t throw the renewables baby out with the bathwater when it comes to electric bikes and solar panels (both of which have a worrying tendency to catch fire). From there it was off to Vegas to headline the opening session at BICSI — one of the largest associations of IT professionals — on the promise and perils of AI (highlights from the conference are below). AI was also the theme of my talk to SIOR’s Philadelphia chapter the following week at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, PA , but I made jaunts in between to speak in Washington to ICSC’s Mid-Atlantic chapter on the future of urban retail, followed by a quick visit to Quebec City to help Convention Centres of Canada imagine how their assets can play a role in post-pandemic urban revitalization.

• As October rolled around, I found myself back in NYC for WRLDCTY, joining my friend and colleague Lev Kushner onstage to speak about the post-pandemic “bleisure” travel and how cities need to combine their tourism and economic development strategies to win the war for talent. (Watch us here!) I then spent consecutive Thursdays in Dallas for Realty Resources, Manhattan for a panel on AI at the architecture firm HOK, and Istanbul for GYODER (pictured below), the largest real estate conference in Turkey.

• November began with an overnight jaunt to Dubai for the Dubai Business Forum, followed immediately by a quick trip to Washington for Booz Allen Hamilton’s ”Age of Principled AI.” Next up is an after-dinner talk for Fiera Capital here in Montréal at the end of the month, followed by my last trips of the year: Kokosing Construction in Columbus, OH; the Southern California Association of Governments 14th Annual Economic Summit in LA (pictured below); and the National Association of College & University Food Services in Kansas City.

And from there, we’ll see where 2024 will take me! Please get in touch if you’d like to add me to your itinerary and vice versa.

Everything is coming up AI these days, including me. Last week, I had the privilege of moderating “The Age of Principled AI,” a panel hosted by Fast Company and Booz Allen Hamilton exploring the ramifications of President Biden’s Executive Order and how to regulate AI going forward.

I was joined onstage by Navrina Singh, CEO of Credo AI; John Beezer, senior advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; the Department of Defense’s Dr. Matt Johnson; and Randal Meyer, chief counsel and legislative director to Representative Nancy Mace. According to GPT-4’s summary of the event, here’s what we talked about:

1. Turning Point for AI Ubiquity: Susan Penfield, Booz Allen’s CTO, opened the event, highlighting the White House’s executive order on AI and the growing ubiquity of AI in various sectors. She raised critical questions about AI governance and mitigating unintended consequences.

2. Government’s Role in AI: The panelists agreed on the need for a robust regulatory framework for AI. The discussion centered around the recent executive order, highlighting the need for a coherent national policy and its impact on various sectors, including national security.

3. AI in Legislation and Policy: Discussions involved congressional perspectives on AI regulation, touching on the need for statutory authority for AI governance. The panelists debated approaches to AI legislation, including self-certification, third-party audits, and the necessity of establishing clear standards for audits and assessments.

4. Operationalizing AI Ethics: Matthew Johnson, Senior Technical Advisor in Responsible AI at the DoD, discussed the DoD’s approach to operationalizing AI ethics, including a toolkit for responsible AI deployment. This toolkit aims to provide a framework for aligning AI applications with ethical principles and values.

5. Impact of AI on National Security: The panel addressed the implications of AI in national security, including the importance of using AI responsibly and ethically in defense contexts. They emphasized the need for AI technologies that align with democratic values and principles.

6. Role of Procurement in AI Deployment: Discussions highlighted the role of procurement as a tool for influencing the development and deployment of AI technologies. The need for clear criteria and benchmarks to ensure alignment with ethical principles was emphasized.

7. Innovative AI Use Cases in Government: Examples of AI applications in government agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, were discussed to illustrate the potential of AI in improving services and decision-making processes.

8. Need for AI Literacy and Expertise: The panelists underscored the importance of AI literacy and the need to build capacity within government agencies and other stakeholders to understand and effectively use AI.

9. Challenges in AI Regulation: The challenges of regulating AI were a central theme, with discussions around balancing innovation with regulation, anticipating threats, and ensuring that AI applications do not infringe on rights or freedoms.

10. Future of AI Governance: The event concluded with reflections on the necessity of a multi-stakeholder approach to AI governance, the importance of aligning AI with societal values, and the potential of AI to transform government missions and societal outcomes.

Dubai Chambers invited me to speak at November’s Dubai Business Forum — a networking and dealmaking extravaganza where the (New) New Silk Road was literally being paved. I was fortunate to join the luminaries on stage in the “Future Theatre” — including former Wired editor Chris Anderson and roboticist David Hanson — to speak about strengthening cities’ relationship with nature.

I’ll spare you the details, but I did use this opportunity to ask two generative AI tools (Midjourney and Bing Image Creator) to help me visualize a “desert modern eco district” (as seen below) and a Sheikh Zayed Road without cars (impossible, as it turns out). It was bracing to see the limits of both our own and our tools’ imaginations.

WRLDCTY returned to New York in early October, and I had the pleasure of joining my friend, colleague, and occasional writing partner Lev Kushner for a tag-team talk on “The Nomadic City” — the subject of our Bloomberg Citylab essay in April.

The crux of our argument: just as remote- and hybrid work has blurred the line between tourists and residents, so, too, must cities blur the lines between their traditional tourism and economic development strategies, leading to what we call “the Department of Hospitality.” Watch the video below (starting at the 6:00 mark).

Barriers to Entry hosts Andrew Lane, Tessa Bain, and Bobby Bonett invited me on their podcast to talk about The Metaverse Metropolis project and how cities deal with technology being thrust upon them. Along the way, we took a trip down memory lane to remember Foursquare, the introduction of Uber, and Pokémon Go! (of course). Click on the video above to listen or skip ahead to these highlights:

(starts at 8:42) Augmented Reality will be the killer app for Artificial Intelligence (and vice versa)

(starts at 11:17) The challenges of regulating technology before it arrives

(starts at 20:35) Burying ‘the metaverse,’ and the role of VR in city planning

(starts at 27:33) Improving collaboration between cities and technology companies

(starts at 30:55) Opportunities for A&D in re-imagining the build environment

(starts at 37:09) Considerations for building a responsible future

The entire podcast is also available at Headliner and wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

Once again, I was back in the moderator’s chair at the 2023 Fast Company Innovation Festival — the premier event of the magazine I’ve been affiliated with for nearly two decades. These days, I’m the host’s Swiss-army-knife when it comes to leading panels headlined by Festival partners covering everything from AI to rewards cards to post-ESG investing to the future of the humble bar code. Here’s a quick listing of the disparate subjects I was assigned this year:

• “Dollars Doing Better: How Responsible Investment Can Drive Change and Returns,” (pictured at top and bottom) with Janus Henderson Investors’ Michelle Dunstan, NYU’s Carolyn Kissane, and the Mentora Institute’s Hitendra Wadhwa. How do you build a personal investment portfolio designed to both thrive in and improve our future? One key is to move beyond investment strategies that merely exclude bad actors and instead to embrace innovative companies committed to creating meaningful change. This approach requires proactive analysis that factors in a host of insights around company trajectory, market performance, and the technologies in play. Hear how far-sighted businesses aligning their company’s vision and strategy to the future are better prepared to succeed and to help drive global change—and meaningful returns for their investors.

• “How to Accelerate AI for Business,” with IBM’s Rohit Badlaney, Fidelity’s Sarah Hoffman, and Columbia Business School’s David Rogers. Generative AI is having its spotlight moment, yet the true value of AI for organizations is based on having a resilient, secure, compliant hybrid cloud infrastructure that delivers the required performance. How do you scale up an AI strategy? How do you keep everything secure? Hear from business and technology leaders as they share their insights on how to unlock the full potential of data and AI.

• “The New Premium Frontier: How Elevated Experiences Create Forever Customers,” with Capital One’s Lauren Liss and Daniela Jorge, along with Leading Hotels of the World CEO Shannon Knapp. As the world grows more complex, the premium on products and services that enrich and simplify people’s lives has never been higher. With the luxury market set to triple in the years ahead, winning high-earning, tech-savvy consumers starts with providing exceptional benefits, world-class design, and a people-first approach. Leading executives from the travel and financial services industries will unveil their strategies for innovating the customer experience in ways that connect with the modern premium consumer and outshine the competition.

• “Disrupt or Be Disrupted: Rethinking Commerce with Next-Level Consumer Engagement,” with GS1 US’ Carrie Wilkie, Bitly CEO Toby Gabriner, Puma’s Lauren Antenucci, and Dillard’s Chuck Lasley. Today’s consumers enjoy more transparency and options than ever before. In this new world of limitless information, how can you better preserve the authenticity that creates consumer loyalty and trust? Innovation is at full throttle with brands and retailers that are choosing to disrupt the shopping experience in groundbreaking ways—versus being on the receiving end of disruption due to marketplace shifts or consumer demands. In this thought-provoking discussion, join a panel of experts, leading retailers, and innovators as they discuss how emerging technologies like two-dimensional (2D) barcodes and radio-frequency identification (RFID) are fueling next-level commerce experiences by creating limitless consumer engagement.

CNBC’s Lora Kolodny was kind enough to quote me in her story on Tesla’s receiving a special special order from the National Highway Transportation Administration in late July requiring it to provide extensive data about its Autopilot and driver monitoring systems to the agency. They’re especially interested in a special configuration known as “Elon mode” that eliminates a so-called “nag” that normally prompts owners to keep their hands on the steering wheel. Musk himself was shown demonstrating the feature in a video he livestreamed to X (neé Twitter) seemingly designed to taunt regulators.

His use of Tesla’s systems would likely comprise a violation of the company’s own terms of use for Autopilot, FSD and FSD Beta, according to Greg Lindsay, an Urban Tech fellow at Cornell. He told CNBC, the entire drive was like “waving a red flag in front of NHTSA.”

As usual, Musk will likely face no consequences. At all.

I’m delighted to be quoted in the Financial Times’ gimlet-eyed take on a new wave of intentional communities, finding them starry-eyed at best and exclusionary at worst. “They’re overly utopian,” I’m quoted as saying in part, and that would be an understatement. (Pair this story with Air Mail’s examination of Praxis for maximum enjoyment.)