Watch Dogs 2 and the Big Brain
I recently have been playing Watch Dogs 2, in which the protagonist controls the city through his cell phone in a somewhat dystopian fashion. While theres much abuse of modern tech in this game, hacking and committing DDos attacks in the name of the law, the game does brings up the exciting yet terrifying theme of AI controlled future cities. Upon further research, I found that Alibaba Cloud is currently experimenting with this technology and is already employing it in some large Chinese cities, particularly its headquarter city, Hangzhou. The "Big Brain" as they call it is working to automize emergency response, healthcare, and traffic signals. From a Star Trek like command center, a few human managers can monitor the entire flow of the city from the airplanes to the pedestrians. While it does have a big brother fear factor, it certainly can lower risks for the average citizen and give them services that are tailored to each individual to increase productivity. I imagine it will someday be able to have all the features the protagonist in Watch Dogs have. Will certainly keep an eye on it. For those interested, I recommend learning about the data analysis of the shared bicycle program in China, analysis that is then used to power the Brain. Link attached.
