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Event

New AI Cities: The Case of Neom (Federico Cugurullo, Trinity College Dublin)

Monday, October 20, 2025 10:00to11:00
Burnside Hall Room 426, 805 rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3A 0B9, CA

Nowadays, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of new cities are rapidly intersecting. In this talk, we will discuss this intersection, using an urban megaproject called Neom, currently under development in Saudi Arabia, as our case study. First, we will focus on how and why urban spaces are becoming a site of AI experimentation through the genesis of new cities. Second, we will pay attention to the dynamics whereby AI experiments are taking place in new cities. Third, we will question the extent to which sustainability is actually pursued by the developers of both new cities and new AIs. Overall, we will observe how fantasies about AI land in ex novo urban projects and how, upon landing, they evolve into new fantasies, including visions of sustainable cities operated by fully autonomous AIs and populated by sentient robots possessing citizenship. These are dangerous fantasies that risk realizing the dreams of power-hungry individuals, to the detriment of social and environmental sustainability, and we need to be careful about how they are shaping the future of our cities.

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