AI Governance and Smart Communities

This unit explores how AI augments human capacity and shapes public- and private-sector responses to energy, natural resource, health, and climate challenges. Students examine privacy, safety, ethics, policy, and partnership models to design community-centered, evidence-based AI solutions such as smart cities and climate interventions.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the societal and workforce impacts of AI across energy, natural resource, healthcare, and humanitarian contexts and recommend strategies to augment human capital and reskill affected roles
• Apply privacy, safety, and ethical frameworks (including GDPR and relevant local policies) to develop a data governance and risk-mitigation plan for an AI-enabled urban or energy system
• Demonstrate the ability to design a vision and proposal for an AI-driven smart city or climate initiative that specifies public–private partnership roles, performance metrics, and implementation milestones
• Evaluate policy options and trade-offs, and formulate community-centered values and governance mechanisms that promote equitable, transparent, and evidence-based AI deployment