Harmonising technology and democracy: AI-powered distributed acoustic sensing in the fabric of smart cities

In the smart cities of the future, where technological advancements rapidly reshape urban landscapes, it's crucial to bridge the gap between citizens and emerging technologies. Recent breakthroughs in generative AI have taught us to avoid moral panics and anticipate social, policy and regulatory challenges, abiding by responsible research and innovation principles. However, these rapid changes frequently catch government officials and policymakers off-guard, leaving them with little time to adapt processes and regulations. In this paper, we analyse the potential impacts of distributed acoustic sensing (or DAS) using existing optical fibre infrastructure in our cities. This technology uses optical fibre cables as ‘passive sensors’, that is, instead of using the cable infrastructure for sending information (e.g., the internet), an ‘interrogator unit’ can be used to detect sound wave disturbances with exceptional sensitivity. Distributed sensing has already demonstrated its effectiveness in monitoring seismic activity, oil rigs, pipelines, and geothermal reservoirs outside of urban areas. By repurposing and adapting this technology, many companies and academics alike claim to be able to use this technology in combination with Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches to address urban challenges such as traffic monitoring, railway infrastructure, buildings' structural integrity, and coastal monitoring for land in-flooding, with the capacity to unlock new possibilities in shaping sustainable cities, tackling climate issues, improving transportation networks, and creating environments that enhance the well-being of urban dwellers. However, before we venture into applying this technology within urban environments, it is crucial to consider the associated challenges, implications, and risks. These may include privacy concerns related to the collection and analysis of sensitive urban data, the ethical implications of AI-driven decision-making, ensuring equitable access to technology, addressing potential biases in data interpretation, and fostering inclusive citizen participation in the decision-making processes. Thus, important questions arise: could AI be used to detect and track individuals, as each one of us has a distinctive gait? Who owns the data collected in this way? How can we ensure that citizens can make sovereign decisions when the underlying infrastructure (legacy/unused optical fibre cables) is already existent? Could they be used to ‘hear’ conversations? In this paper, we review the most prominent advances of this technology to tackle urban challenges and we reflect on these challenges and risks, but also its opportunities. Moreover, we present a taxonomy to help navigate this rapidly changing landscape to lead the way towards an anticipatory approach to the democratic governance of this emerging technology. We call for public awareness and interdisciplinary collaboration, not only from closely related fields like engineering, physics or telecommunications, but also the social science and humanities, to foster a digital democracy that is inclusive, equitable, and responsive to citizen needs. Together, academics, policymakers, industry players, citizens, artists, activists and community groups can collaboratively shape cities that are not only technologically advanced but also democratically engaged and digitally inclusive.