As in the past and present, there will always be ways for individuals to act humanely. But in view of the change increasingly perceived as the age of artificial intelligence, will humans still be able to shape our common life and our societies? What will be our sense of purpose? How to motivate children to learn if machines always learn faster? If you ask AI and IT experts what will happen to humans, you usually get one of these answers: The most common response is an emphatic description of how AI applications will penetrate all spheres of life and provide tons of new services for the good of humanity. Other responses just point to AI tools, agents, other applications, and how already today or in the near future they will make our lives easier. And of course, other responses are cautioning. Either they doubt that there will be an ‘age of AI’ (so, don’t worry or at least not so much) or they warn that without safe and ethical use of AI, humans will lose control, be taken hostage by an AI regime, or that humanity will even vanish totally. By giving machines authority over humans, experts argue, we delegate humans to a second-class status and lose the right and possibility to participate in decisions that affect us. Are we already lost? There are those AI developers and political experts like Geoffrey Hinton, Henry Kissinger (+), Eric Schmidt, or Daniel Huttenlocher who warn that as of today, humanity is not ready yet for the age of AI. Maybe it is not ready yet, but maybe soon? What is extremely difficult to find is a more positive narrative for a ‘human AI age’ that describes how it can work in practice, that AI applications will penetrate all spheres of life, while the lives of humans and human society will continue to flourish. Stuart Russel, the President of the International Association for Safe & Ethical AI and lifelong AI scientist writes in his book ‘Human Compatible. AI and the Problem of Control’ “Some are working on ‘transition plans’ – but transition to what? We need a plausible destination in order to plan a transition – that is, we need a plausible picture of a desirable future economy where most of what we currently call work is done by machines.” What if most people will have nothing of economic value to contribute to society? Stuart Russel states, “Inevitably, most people will be engaged in supplying interpersonal services that can be provided – or which we prefer to be provided – only by humans. That is, if we can no longer supply routine physical labor and routine mental labor, we can still supply our humanity. We will need to become good at being human.” Imagine, how our cities might change if the life of human changes dramatically in an age of AI. Russell further states that all of us need help in learning ‘the art of life itself,’ which requires a radical rethinking of our educational system. “The final result -if it works- would be a world well worth living. Without such a rethinking, we risk an unsustainable level of socioeconomic dislocation.“ I conclude from the above that a lot more thinking by social scientists, educators, philosophers, governments, city makers and planners is needed for ‘transition plans’ and how they can be implemented in our current world with its multiple crises and opportunities. For my own work beyond 2025 I am looking for new opportunities in support of cities, governments, and NGOs with a stronger focus on the development of humans, human society, and its governance. AI will be part of our lives, but that won’t be enough. We have to find answers on guiding questions like these: How can we keep pace with technological developments and ensure that machines follow human objectives? What will remain as our comparative advantage and contribution as humans? And how can humans with support of AI create a world well worth living for us and the generations following us? As humans, we experience a broad range of emotions, form deep connections with others, possess consciousness and curiosity, and demonstrate creativity and resilience in the face of challenges. We are making mistakes, learn from them, and the ongoing search for meaning. The concept of being human can be explored from philosophical, biological, social science, and spiritual perspectives; it ultimately encompasses the complex, interconnected, and ever-evolving experience of living life with its inherent joys and sorrows. That’s exciting. I won’t be able to answer all related questions and certainly not alone, but based on my experience, I want to put my penny into the jar to support the journey to a human world worth living because of or despite AI. To remain flexible and creative, I enjoy all kinds of inspiration, and one is to listen to Marina’s song ‘To Be Human’. She is not singing about AI. Just about how to be human. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM8Tm9ycGz4 Where do you take your inspiration from?

June Climate Meetings (SB 62), Bonn, Germany (picture by U. Graute)

Official Website of the Congress: https://riyadh2025.isocarp.org/index.php

The UN will be put on life support for a while to keep from drowning and gain time for reform. It is likely that In face of the financial and general support crises of the United Nations member states will put the UN on a life support system to keep core functions running. That may gain time but the real UN reform requires nothing less than building a new boat while being on an open and stormy sea. There is much talk about UN reform. Out of panic, there are plans to shrink the UN, cut salaries and shuffle staff around to duty stations which are assumed to be cost-saving. And this in a time of multiple crises, with every day emerging issues and conflicts. Have you every tried to build a new boat on open sea while you sit in an old boat in danger of sinking? That’s the kind of situation the UN and its members are in. The elephant in the room is the future of the world as a community At a conference in Toronto, I learned that the natives in North America are used to plan seven generations ahead. Imagine our politicians would do that! Automatically, they would be forced to think beyond their own lifetime. All of a sudden, the future of the community would be more important and this community would have multiple identities: the identity of the smallest entities (family), neighbourhood, city, region, country and the even the identity of a world community because we humans share all resources in the world and depend on it. Unfortunately, people are also afraid of it because building this community takes time and it is not without risks and possible setbacks. Instead, there is a growing trend to scramble as many resources and power as possible under one leader to bring the own group in the best starting position for a possibly upcoming final fight for survival. Could we survive that? Probably not and certainly, the world would be in a worse condition after that. Some super-rich may survive in a space station on Mars for a while before they realise that they manoeuvred themselves into a dead-end. Germany demonstrated to the world what happens if the world retreats from global community building. My uncles and grandfathers fought in two World Wars that killed a total of about 50 million people in an effort to make Germany great again. Thanks to the Allied Forces this ended 80 years ago on 8 May 1945. Japan went on fighting for a while and gave up after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The slaughtering was so massive that it convinced the countries of the world to establish the United Nations. Today we take this world community (with all the flaws it has) for granted as a stabilisation anchor of the world. But it is an illusion. Without putting skin into the game and investing in its reform, the slaughtering may return. Thus, there is no alternative to jointly building the world community for future generations. SO, LET'S KEEP BUILDING A PEACEFUL AND JUST WORLD COMMUNITY THAT LEAVES NOBODY BEHIND.

None of the following supports the idea that urban sprawl is required or even helpful to build sustainable cities. However, it is argued that it may be part of the solution for the crisis of affordable housing in many countries of the world. With this post, I would like to encourage a debate, eg, at the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress #WPC61 on 1-4 December 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1976 and alarmed by rapid and uncontrolled urban growth, particularly in the developing world, the UN General Assembly called for the First United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I) addressing the challenges and future of human settlements. Housing remained at the focus of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme UN-Habitat ever since, and this was reconfirmed at Habitat III in Quito 2016. The New Urban Agenda recognizes and promotes a "right to the city," meaning the right of all inhabitants to have equal access to the benefits and opportunities that cities offer. It emphasizes a vision where urban spaces are designed and used collectively for the benefit of all, including those in informal settlements. Yes a vision, but overall, the Agenda is not very strategic and invites more to raising picking instead of integrated problem solving. Meanwhile, cities keep struggling to cope with fast urbanization, migration and growing demand for larger apartments. Urban sprawl is criticized since the 1950s and 60s because of its large demand for land. No densely populated urban areas have higher costs for the water, energy and transportation grid. In addition, developers often focus on profitable housing development while they don’t care for urban infrastructure, public spaces, schools etc. The New Urban Agenda promotes urban density as a key strategy for sustainable and efficient urban development but that doesn’t help those who a looking for housing now. Conor Dougherty is the author of the book Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and a Reckoning for the American Dream published on 10 April 2025 in the New York Times the article “Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it.” He doesn’t make any effort to paint urban sprawl in rosy colors. Instead, he describes how eg in Princeton, Texas, the nation’s third-fastest-growing city, infrastructure has struggled to keep up with growth. He analyzes how difficult and slow-moving densification efforts in cities are and states, “Even if all the regulatory restraints were removed tomorrow, developers couldn’t find enough land to satisfy America’s housing needs inside established areas. Consequently, much of the nation’s housing growth has moved to states in the South and Southwest, where a surplus of open land and willingness to sprawl has turned the Sun Belt into a kind of national sponge that sops up housing demand from higher-cost cities. The largest metro areas there have about 20 percent of the nation’s population, but over the past five years they have built 42 percent of the nation’s new single-family homes, according to a recent report by Cullum Clark, an economist at the George W. Bush Institute, a research center in Dallas.” For instance, Celina, Texas (picture), has 54,000 residents, compared with 8,000 just a decade ago, and the population is projected to hit 110,000 by 2030. The lack of urbane infrastructure, employment, greenery, and community is striking, but people keep coming because of affordability. While planners and others prefer denser and walkable neighbourhoods like 15-minute-cities, the money to build related infrastructure in addition to houses is often missing or would reduce affordability. A dilemma. There are good reasons to criticize the trend described for the US by Conor Dougherty, but it provides a chance to attain affordable housing for people who cannot find it elsewhere. And the history of these satellite towns has demonstrated that the missing infrastructure, employment and community can be added lateron. It seems, urban sprawl is not the solution, but it might be part of the solution, isn’t it? Let's discuss this here or later on other occasions, like eg the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress 'Cities & Regions in Action: Planning Pathways to Resilience and Quality of Life 1-4 December 2025, in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia #WPC61. Reference: Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it. By Conor Dougherty. The New York Times, April 10, 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/magazine/suburban-sprawl-texas.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Picture: UN photo

Click to see the map in the full scale or download map in pdf format here https://anatomyof.ai/img/ai-anatomy-map.pdf.

About the challenge of providing advice on governance and development in times of disruption and transition (English with German captatio ns) Deutsch: Ulrich spricht darüber, wie es ist, in Zeiten von Umbruch, Wandel und vielfachen Krisen als erfahrener Berater zu arbeiten. Obwohl die Situation nicht einfach ist, kann man daraus auch Chancen für effizientere Institutionen und Unternehmen sehen. Erfahrung und Flexibilität sind dabei wichtig, um neue Wege zu finden. English: Ulrich talks about working as an experienced consultant in times of upheaval, change, and multiple crises. Although the situation is not easy, we can also see opportunities for more efficient institutions and companies. Experience and flexibility are important to find new pathways.

"The development of highly capable AI is likely to be the biggest event in human history. The world must act decisively to ensure it is not the last event in human history. This conference, and the cooperative spirit of the AI Summit series, give me hope; but we must turn hope into action, soon, if there is to be a future we would want our children to live in." Professor Stuart Russell, IASEAI President and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley Please join me on 13 February 2025 at ARCS 9.0 for my keynote on 'Urban politics, planning, and economy in the Global South in times of fast developing AI' The two weeks before my conference presentation were full of dynamics in the field of AI, its politics, and development. First came the launch of the 500 billion US$ Stargate Project in the USA, followed by the launch of the Chinese open-source large language model (LLM) DeepSeek. On 6 February the International Association for Safe & Ethical AI held its inaugural conference in Paris, France. Prominent AI scientists including Stuart Russel and the 2024 Physics Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton called for international cooperation to ensure safe and ethical artificial intelligence. On 10 and 11 February 2025, France co-chaired by India hosted the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris. The speeches by Heads of State and Government including the President of France, the Prime Minister of India, the President of the EU Commission, and the US Vice President gave the impression of how different countries of the world try to position themselves in a race for AI leadership. Urban politics, planning, and economy, not only in the Global South, need longer-term frameworks. How should digital transformation and urban planning be approached in cities facing multiple crises and the new wave of AI technological innovation? The latter is according to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others unprecedented in scale and speed but it is expected to affect all spheres of life. ARCS 9.0 schedule and Zoom link for Inaugural, plenaries and Valedictory. Date - 13th Feb to 15th Feb 2025 Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/95336599575?pwd=NExxgf8gBoubEfKRhhtbalM1ZYjQph.1 Meeting ID: 953 3659 9575