RTPI разрабатывает этические принципы использования искусственного интеллекта в градостроительстве

In late June, Jenny McLoughlin wrote a fair review of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI’s) practice advice on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in Property Week’s AI Insight section. She referred to it as “far more of an overview than a practical rulebook”. A justified critique, and one we at the RTPI are working to address through more rigorous, specific guidance that will be published in the future. However, it is worth pausing to consider what guidance the RTPI, or any professional body, should be providing when it comes to this ever-shifting technology. First, there is a need for anyone advising on the use of, or using, new AI tools to take care. Not only are we seeing a rate of change so dramatic that any expert advice could soon be out of date, but we should be diligent about the advice we hand out. We have all heard tales of bias, misinformation or hallucinations creeping into AI responses. But there are also reports of AI use causing cognitive offloading and intellectual passivity, as well as the erosion of deep engagement. Any guidance that the RTPI produces, therefore, will need to be based on principles that go beyond specific technologies to avoid becoming out of date, or simply distilling complex, human-development-shaping technology down to a simple ‘how to’ guide. That is not to say the RTPI is made up of, to paraphrase Star Wars creator George Lucas recently describing AI film-making sceptics, ‘luddites clinging to horses and carts’, nor are we shirking our responsibilities. It is the opposite, in fact. We are being both robust and cautious, as well as experimental and progressive, in our adoption of AI. Take, for example the RTPI’s latest report, ‘Local plans and the climate crisis: the gap between ambition and action in England’. For this report, we commissioned researchers at the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) to use Landstack’s AI-powered research tool to assess every adopted and emerging local plan in England. The goal was to measure the work of local authorities’ approach to climate change against climate policy indicators drawn from the RTPI and TCPA’s ‘Planning for the Climate Crisis: A guide for local authorities’ guidance. Experimental approach It was an experimental approach to research, but one that would otherwise have taken the researchers months, and significant cost, to complete. Instead, we were able to measure their progress on a tight budget, taking a few months to complete and write up. Researchers identified 10 areas of climate planning best practice, based on the RTPI and TCPA’s ‘Planning for the Climate Crisis’ guide. These were translated into 18 policy indicators and corresponding prompts. The AI was asked to identify whether each local plan included specific policies, providing a binary response alongside a short explanation. As we are an institute striving to use AI responsibly, the report provided us with greater knowledge of where AI can be used, and where it has limitations. It wasn’t perfect and was an experimental approach to AI use in planning research, with the findings considered an indicative national snapshot. But it provided us with a new file in our database of use cases and best practices. As our work with the TCPA demonstrates, it is going to take the combined efforts of the profession to define the responsible use of AI. The Planning Alliance – a cross-sector group that aims to improve public sector planning – is also tackling this challenge. Following a roundtable it held, titled ‘Digital Transformation, AI and Interoperability in the Planning System’, as well as meetings with the RTPI, the alliance is working with partners to ensure capability and ethics are properly considered to make sure AI is enabling planners to spend more time adding value through engagement, negotiations and insight. It’s an odd idea to consider, but perhaps in this way – through considered, sensible, research-backed approaches to AI use and freeing up time in a planner’s busy schedule – AI could help a planner’s work become more human. For now, though, we’ll work on building the evidence. Simon Creer is director of communications and external affairs at the Royal Town Planning Institute