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AI and Planning - The three main things

If you were to talk about the three main things around AI and planning what would they be?

This was a question posed in a WhatsApp group to which I am party and it prompted a thread that was so good that I asked the contributors if I could capture it. The consensus on those three main things was as following.

Data

AI is only as good as the data it uses, and the consensus seems to be that not only are we starting from a low baseline, digital maturity within LPAs is low as well. Plan-making, at all levels, offers the opportunity for a reset, but will that opportunity be taken?

Efficiencies

Within the plan-making process itself there might be, for example, opportunities in relation to identifying sites and their capacity. The greater opportunities to free up officer time within LPAs could though be using AI for PD and householder applications, many of which are more algorithmic.

Objections & Engagement

Any discussion about AI and planning either starts with or ends with the risks of AI-based objections and inadequately verified evidence.

The tide of AI-generated objections risks gumming up the system quickly if action is not taken soon. Extending the PINS processes to applications by way of Planning Practice Guidance would be a quick win and other initiatives might include the setting of mandatory word limits.

We should perhaps though take a moment to step back because in the rush to deal with the AI objection issue we must not lose sight of the public’s right to participate and comment.

How though? AI is changing how the public interact with services, which makes the need for clear and accessible information even more important.

Why though? Let us go back to first principles. What are we hoping to gain from public participation and what process best achieves that? We are currently trying to adapt an existing system to new technologies without considering what we hope to achieve by collecting comments in the first place.

Hundreds of people might be willing to express a view on an application on a Facebook, but only a few might submit a formal comment? Does that matter? If it does how can those views be captured in a worthwhile way?

By and large people never 100% like or 100% hate something, but if asked a binary question (like support or object) they are perhaps more likely to object to something because of a tiny part they dislike on the basis that they do not support it enough to endorse it completely. How about a five point Likert scale?

What though if the principle of development has already been established and the proposal is fully policy compliant? Does the public have a right to participate and comment then? Who is going to tell them if not?

All of the risks associated with AI arguably exacerbate issues known already so does the profession need a livelier debate about ethics and reasonable expectations? If we cannot set the tone with it be the tech companies that start to answer questions like acceptable limits to community input and how rules-based should planning decisions be.

As it so happens the next episode of 50 Shades of Planning will be exploring these themes in more detail. Subscribe now, if you have not already, so that it magically appears in your phone when I have published it. 

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