IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 81

In this article we elaborate on the key concepts of
algorithmic governance in smart cities, discussing its
likely increasing role in the future. Without any intention
of dramatizing or of embracing dystopian visions, we
intend to outline some specific problems that could
potentially occur in future smart cities, and eventually
analyze some key directions to prevent or mitigate -
also with the fundamental support of pervasive comput-

ing technologies - these potential problems and
possibly turn them into advantages.

Smart Cities: From Citizen Support to
Algorithmic Governance
Algorithmic governance, in general terms, concerns
empowering software to take decisions and to autonomously - i.e., without human supervision - regulate
some aspects of our everyday human activities or some
aspect of the society, according to some algorithmically
defined policies [4]-[6].
We are already subject to algorithmic governance in
a variety of different aspects of our personal and social
lives. Google search dictates what information we find
on the Internet, as we typically accept the suggestions
JUNE 2018

∕

appearing on the first page. Facebook news feed algorithms dictates what are the relevant posts to show us,
and given that young people rely on Facebook as the
primary source of news, this implies that they have fully
delegated to Facebook the activity of seeking and filtering information [7].
Moving from the individual to the societal sphere, examples of algorithmic governance can be found in trading,
where most of decisions (and thus the oscillations of
markets and our finances) now rely on complex agentbased decision making; or in the pricing strategies of airlines that rely on complex analysis of travel trends.
In the area or urban management, some early examples of algorithmic governance can be found in traffic
management (e.g., traffic lights that adaptively their frequency depending on the sensed traffic flow), public
transport (e.g., to adapt bus schedule and routes to
meet the transport demand in real time), and energy
management (e.g., to automatically tune energy pricing
depending on the instantaneous balance between supply and demand).
Current examples of algorithmic governance for
smart cities still rely on rather limited capabilities of
sensing and actuating. However, the increasing spread
of pervasive computing and Internet of things (IoT) technologies will soon make it possible to sense at incredible levels of detail every single event happening in every
corner of a city, and to trigger flexible actions to affect
the state of things via a variety of actuators, robots, and
autonomous vehicles [1]. The assessed mid-term future
for urban mobility is the one in which citizens and merchandise will be carried to any desired destination via
myriads of self-driving vehicles, globally orchestrating
their movements and routes with each other and with
the urban street infrastructure. Similarly, the flow of
pedestrians will be somehow steered (via digital signages or apps on wearable devices) and orchestrated so as
to avoid dangerous situations [8].
Pushing the vision forward, we can imagine that the
entire management of cities will be soon governed and
actuated in an automatic, unsupervised way. For instance, this can include the management of waste collection
(which also includes the possibility to make citizens
individually accountable for what they produce as
waste), decisions on new urbanization, and management of roads and other infrastructure (e.g., by automatically deciding which roads and traffic lights to replace
depending on their actual state and available budget).
In general, living in a smart environment and being
made part of its awareness can potentially make us
smarter. That is, it can notably increase our perception
and social capabilities [2], and our ability to understand situations and react to them. In addition, allowing our everyday urban lives to be governed by some

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

81



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018

Contents
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - Cover1
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - Cover2
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 1
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - Contents
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 3
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 4
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 5
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 6
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 7
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 8
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 9
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 10
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 11
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 12
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 13
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 14
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 15
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 16
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 17
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 18
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 19
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 20
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 21
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 22
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 23
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 24
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 25
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 26
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 27
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 28
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 29
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 30
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 31
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 32
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 33
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 34
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 35
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 36
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 37
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 38
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 39
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 40
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 41
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 42
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 43
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 44
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 45
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 46
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 47
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 48
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 49
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 50
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 51
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 52
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 53
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 54
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 55
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 56
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 57
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 58
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 59
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 60
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 61
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 62
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 63
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 64
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 65
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 66
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 67
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 68
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 69
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 70
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 71
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 72
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 73
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 74
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 75
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 76
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 77
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 78
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 79
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 80
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 81
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 82
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 83
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 84
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 85
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 86
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 87
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 88
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - Cover3
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_march2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_december2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_september2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_june2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_march2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_december2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_september2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_june2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_march2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_december2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_september2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_june2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_march2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_december2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_september2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_june2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_march2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_december2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_september2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_june2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_march2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_winter2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_fall2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_summer2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_spring2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_winter2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_fall2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_summer2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_spring2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_winter2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_fall2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_summer2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_spring2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_winter2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_fall2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_summer2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_spring2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_winter2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_fall2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_summer2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/technologysociety_spring2013
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com