#automation in cities

[presswoodterryryan]

Trump's Freedom Cities: A New Era of Sustainable Development

By Mr. Fluffernutter In an era of rapid technological advancement, economic shifts, and increasing urban congestion, former President Donald Trump has introduced a bold and ambitious vision—the creation of Freedom Cities. As part of his Agenda 47 policy framework, Trump proposes developing new cities on federally owned land, aiming to redefine urban living through cutting-edge infrastructure,…

[bioethicists]

it's quite offputting to me when ppl can't disentangle their hatred for capitalism from a hatred for... new technological innovation? the ways in which capitalism has shaped the development of certain technologies has been deeply negative, not to mention that imperialism ensures that new technology is usually produced via extractive relationships with both the planet + ppl in the global south.

but this weird tying of capitalist impact on innovation (+the idea of what is/is not innovation) to hatred of innovation itself (or even more disturbing valorization of "the good old days"/implications that technology is causing social degeneracy) is baffling to me. perhaps it is impossible to achieve specific technologies without unconscionable resource extraction practices, in which case they should not be pursued. but so many ppl act like there is something inherently morally suspect in pursuit of tech such as autonomous vehicles or AI or automation, independent of the material conditions that produced them/that they may produce.

tesla is evil because they exploit ppl for profit + participate in an economy built on the exploitation of the global south + use 'innovation' as a marketing tool to mask serious safety concerns. they're not evil bcuz they want to make vehicles that move on their own. there are actually a great deal of fantastic applications for vehicles which move on their own? equating technology with moral decay is not a radical position; you need a material analysis of why technological innovation has become characterized by harmful practices.

[ellipsea]

"perhaps you went overboard in the cozy indie beekeeping sim game Apico" perhaps i did. perhaps it's an expression of love

[the-most-humble-blog]

<!-- BEGIN TRANSMISSION --> <div style="white-space:pre-wrap"> <meta servitor-clearance="beyond-recycled"> <script> ARCHIVE_TAG="HIVE_SERVITOR_SALE::GRANNY_GRADE" EFFECT: psychological dryness, knob-polishing gratitude reflex, AI-assisted shame loops TRIGGER_WARNING="cybernetic horror, retired heretics, adult servitor utility humor" </script>

🤖 BLACKSITE SCROLLTRAP — “USED SERVITOR SALE, F*CKERS! GET YOURS BEFORE THEY START REMEMBERING!”

---

🎉 – “Polish the Emperor’s name into the chrome!”

That’s right. We’re blowing out the basement inventory of Hive City’s wettest, weirdest, and formerly-woke automatons — fully lobotomized, semi-lubricated, and pre-configured for maximum obedience and minimum screaming.

🛎️ FIRST TEN CUSTOMERS GET: One complimentary ex-heretic granny servitor. Built strong. Sanitized. And whisper-trained to polish all your ceremonial knobs. (And we do mean all of them.)

—

📢 ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE RECALL DIVISION:

“Citizens! The Emperor does not waste biomass. He repurposes it. So come claim your refurbished sinners today!”

—

🛒 SERVITOR MODELS AVAILABLE:

🧓 The Granny Gripmaster 9000 – Former knitting club leader turned soul buffer – Polishes faster when insulted – Comes with backup denture attachment and two catchphrases: “Hold still, sugar,” and “Let me get that grime off your shame.”

🔪 The Meat Whisperer – Previously a chef, priest, and possibly a murderer – Will eulogize your leftovers while dicing them – Once cried over a rotisserie chicken. That’s commitment.

💋 The Comfort Crotch Unit™ – Once screamed “Down with patriarchy!” — now hums lullabies while oiling your insecurities – Equipped with adjustable shame suppressor – Sings old Terran jazz standards through a lubricated throat synth

💼 The HR Punishment Model – Responds only to passive-aggressive tone – Prints compliance forms when struck – Will whisper your worst decision back to you before you sleep

🧠 The Think Twice Mk2 – Head full of half-deleted war crimes – Still retains enough memory to scream “WHY?!” during firmware updates – Use only if you hate silence and yourself

—

🧽 WARRANTY CLAUSES:

No refunds if it starts praying

No emotional attachments permitted unless licensed

Batteries not included — but screaming is

Not for use near mirrors (they might remember)

—

🗣️ CUSTOMER REVIEWS:

“She buffed my armor and my childhood trauma.” – Sergeant Kneecap “Heard her moan while vacuuming. Five stars.” – Mech-Tech Ron “One whispered ‘you’ll never be enough’ while handing me tea. Still better than my ex.” – Sadus the Forsaken “Mine knits doilies with my sins stitched in. I hang them proudly.” – Grand Marshal Stains “She hummed while polishing my boltgun. Then winked. Then I cried.” – Trooper Hark

—

🚫 WARNING LABELS:

May retain fragments of personality

Do not attempt to “liberate” your servitor. You are not the protagonist.

Will sh*t out screws if provoked

Laughs at night. Sometimes at you. Sometimes with.

—

🎯 SERVITOR ROULETTE (5 Thrones per spin):

Win one of the following:

Battle Nun who only speaks in war hymns

Failed influencer with auto-praise module

Uncle Model with too many catchphrases and not enough limbs

Mystery Box (contains wet disappointment)

Ex-Tax Collector who screams “RECEIPTS!” when idle

—

📦 FAMILY BUNDLE PACK:

Two kneelers

One mop-limbed custodian

Free mystery jar of fluid labeled “Do Not Return”

Includes one signed affidavit by a Tech-Priest who has seen too much

—

🪦 BACKSTORY SAMPLE:

Each unit includes a QR code linked to the memories they scream about most:

Regret

Betrayal

That one time with the pudding

A son they never had (but keep blaming you for)

—

💀 RECALL INCIDENTS (DO NOT INQUIRE):

One whispered coordinates to a forgotten battle

Another opened its stomach and pulled out a wedding ring

“Grandma Unit 009” pulled a knife and cried for ‘Julius’

One servitor wrote a poem. It rhymed. Everyone wept.

Someone married theirs. They’re… happy?

—

📉 MARKET STATS (LIVE):

Servitors sold: 4,983 Heretics converted into chrome: 9,212 Granny models still humming: 42 Units demanding union rights: 1 (executed) Bodily fluids expressed during polish: variable Dignity lost per customer: exponential

—

🧠 Read more unauthorized asset liquidation logs and gut-level obedience propaganda at: 👉 https://linktr.ee/ObeyMyCadence 🛡️ Rusty love. Mechanical loyalty. Deep-cleaned heresy. 🚪 Warning: May trigger unresolved maternal issues.

📊 0 refunds 9 unholy lubrications reported 1 rogue servitor canonized mid-polish 100% certified knob-purity delivery </div> <!-- END TRANSMISSION [THEY REMEMBER. THEY POLISH. THEY LOVE IN LOOPS.] -->

[bcdlistings]

Brandon Cooper Design

Brandon Cooper Design provides marketing and creative services in Stuart, Palm City and across the Treasure Coast — helping small businesses get found, trusted and chosen through strategic branding, website design, content creation, local SEO and video storytelling.

Service Area (In Florida): Stuart, Palm City, Martin County, Port St. Lucie, Hobe Sound 33455, Jensen Beach 34957, Port Salerno 34997, Sewall’s Point 34996

Business Hours: Mon-Fri: 9AM — 5PM EST Payment Methods: Credit Cards, DCH Direct Deposit Contact Name: Brandon Cooper

Contact Info: Brandon Cooper Design Address: Stuart, FL 34996, USA Phone: +1 (772) 210–4318 Mail: hello@brandoncooper.com Website: https://www.brandoncooper.com

Find Online: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BrandonCooperDesign

[spirit-pyrite]

@thenoodlegod ! This is my little bit of worldbuilding for the mines [: It’s Headcannon in the sense that nobody has to agree if they don’t want to, not in the sense that we actually have a canon to draw from hahah.

This was originally my page for drawing out other tumblrinas MC skins, so don’t mind Inbetweenhours hanging upside down in the top corner there! Hi inbetweenhours [:

[jigarpanchal]

Smart Ecosystems, Smarter Apps: MeshTek’s IoT Innovation Engine

Experience the future of connected infrastructure with MeshTek’s cutting-edge IoT app development solutions. From smart cities to automated industries, our platform turns real-time data into actionable intelligence. Designed to scale, optimized for control, and built for performance—MeshTek ( IOT APP DEVELOPMENT COMPANY )empowers seamless connectivity across environments through robust, user-centric mobile applications.

[jcmarchi]

Are AI-Powered Traffic Cameras Watching You Drive?

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/are-ai-powered-traffic-cameras-watching-you-drive/

Are AI-Powered Traffic Cameras Watching You Drive?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere today. While that’s an exciting prospect to some, it’s an uncomfortable thought for others. Applications like AI-powered traffic cameras are particularly controversial. As their name suggests, they analyze footage of vehicles on the road with machine vision.

They’re typically a law enforcement measure — police may use them to catch distracted drivers or other violations, like a car with no passengers using a carpool lane. However, they can also simply monitor traffic patterns to inform broader smart city operations. In all cases, though, they raise possibilities and questions about ethics in equal measure.

How Common Are AI Traffic Cameras Today?

While the idea of an AI-powered traffic camera is still relatively new, they’re already in use in several places. Nearly half of U.K. police forces have implemented them to enforce seatbelt and texting-while-driving regulations. U.S. law enforcement is starting to follow suit, with North Carolina catching nine times as many phone violations after installing AI cameras.

Fixed cameras aren’t the only use case in action today, either. Some transportation departments have begun experimenting with machine vision systems inside public vehicles like buses. At least four cities in the U.S. have implemented such a solution to detect cars illegally parked in bus lanes.

With so many local governments using this technology, it’s safe to say it will likely grow in the future. Machine learning will become increasingly reliable over time, and early tests could lead to further adoption if they show meaningful improvements.

Rising smart city investments could also drive further expansion. Governments across the globe are betting hard on this technology. China aims to build 500 smart cities, and India plans to test these technologies in at least 100 cities. As that happens, more drivers may encounter AI cameras on their daily commutes.

Benefits of Using AI in Traffic Cameras

AI traffic cameras are growing for a reason. The innovation offers a few critical advantages for public agencies and private citizens.

Safety Improvements

The most obvious upside to these cameras is they can make roads safer. Distracted driving is dangerous — it led to the deaths of 3,308 people in 2022 alone — but it’s hard to catch. Algorithms can recognize drivers on their phones more easily than highway patrol officers can, helping enforce laws prohibiting these reckless behaviors.

Early signs are promising. The U.K. and U.S. police forces that have started using such cameras have seen massive upticks in tickets given to distracted drivers or those not wearing seatbelts. As law enforcement cracks down on such actions, it’ll incentivize people to drive safer to avoid the penalties.

AI can also work faster than other methods, like red light cameras. Because it automates the analysis and ticketing process, it avoids lengthy manual workflows. As a result, the penalty arrives soon after the violation, which makes it a more effective deterrent than a delayed reaction. Automation also means areas with smaller police forces can still enjoy such benefits.

Streamlined Traffic

AI-powered traffic cameras can minimize congestion on busy roads. The areas using them to catch illegally parked cars are a prime example. Enforcing bus lane regulations ensures public vehicles can stop where they should, avoiding delays or disruptions to traffic in other lanes.

Automating tickets for seatbelt and distracted driving violations has a similar effect. Pulling someone over can disrupt other cars on the road, especially in a busy area. By taking a picture of license plates and sending the driver a bill instead, police departments can ensure safer streets without adding to the chaos of everyday traffic.

Non-law-enforcement cameras could take this advantage further. Machine vision systems throughout a city could recognize congestion and update map services accordingly, rerouting people around busy areas to prevent lengthy delays. Considering how the average U.S. driver spent 42 hours in traffic in 2023, any such improvement is a welcome change.

Downsides of AI Traffic Monitoring

While the benefits of AI traffic cameras are worth noting, they’re not a perfect solution. The technology also carries some substantial potential downsides.

False Positives and Errors

The correctness of AI may raise some concerns. While it tends to be more accurate than people in repetitive, data-heavy tasks, it can still make mistakes. Consequently, removing human oversight from the equation could lead to innocent people receiving fines.

A software bug could cause machine vision algorithms to misidentify images. Cybercriminals could make such instances more likely through data poisoning attacks. While people could likely dispute their tickets and clear their name, it would take a long, difficult process to do so, counteracting some of the technology’s efficiency benefits.

False positives are a related concern. Algorithms can produce high false positive rates, leading to more charges against innocent people, which carries racial implications in many contexts. Because data biases can remain hidden until it’s too late, AI in government applications can exacerbate problems with racial or gender discrimination in the legal system.

Privacy Issues

The biggest controversy around AI-powered traffic cameras is a familiar one — privacy. As more cities install these systems, they record pictures of a larger number of drivers. So much data in one place raises big questions about surveillance and the security of sensitive details like license plate numbers and drivers’ faces.

Many AI camera solutions don’t save images unless they determine it’s an instance of a violation. Even so, their operation would mean the solutions could store hundreds — if not thousands — of images of people on the road. Concerns about government surveillance aside, all that information is a tempting target for cybercriminals.

U.S. government agencies suffered 32,211 cybersecurity incidents in 2023 alone. Cybercriminals are already targeting public organizations and critical infrastructure, so it’s understandable why some people may be concerned that such groups would gather even more data on citizens. A data breach in a single AI camera system could affect many who wouldn’t have otherwise consented to giving away their data.

What the Future Could Hold

Given the controversy, it may take a while for automated traffic cameras to become a global standard. Stories of false positives and concerns over cybersecurity issues may delay some projects. Ultimately, though, that’s a good thing — attention to these challenges will lead to necessary development and regulation to ensure the rollout does more good than harm.

Strict data access policies and cybersecurity monitoring will be crucial to justify widespread adoption. Similarly, government organizations using these tools should verify the development of their machine-learning models to check for and prevent problems like bias. Regulations like the recent EU Artificial Intelligence Act have already provided a legislative precedent for such qualifications.

AI Traffic Cameras Bring Both Promise and Controversy

AI-powered traffic cameras may still be new, but they deserve attention. Both the promises and pitfalls of the technology need greater attention as more governments seek to implement them. Higher awareness of the possibilities and challenges surrounding this innovation can foster safer development for a secure and efficient road network in the future.

[clonerightsagenda]

That w359 post is why the only non-Hephaestus AU I've posted about was the community college employees one because working at a community college is roughly equivalent to working on a crumbling space station in terms of pressure cooker environments that bond you through trauma. Yesterday I got calls and texts that there was a tornado but the college never turned the interior alert system on. Then an hour later I was on lunch break and the water stopped working because they'd turned it off to do a test at 11:30. Then two hours after that we lost internet for 30 minutes. The facilities guy told us he personally won't drink the water but refused to elaborate.

[arctic-hands]

...it should NOT be this hard to get in touch with your power company wtf

[reportsofagrandfuture]

[chill-band-folder]

Albert Hammond Jr. - Hard To Live In The City (2006)

[theskyexists]

Really wanna work on my multiplayer game idea again.... Hmmrrm.

[askshivanulegacy]

THIS. And this is exactly the problem even in countries with "good" public transportation.

I hate driving to and from the airport. It's only an hour and some change, but it sure would be nice to relax after a long flight, and it would also be nice not to pay ridiculous parking prices. But the train takes 2 hours. They might or might not be doing work on the line, which means I need to take a longer route, and I might not be able to make it back to my departure point because the routes each way are different. On top of that, the train only runs at a certain frequency, and not even regularly through the day - there are gaps in service that are hours long. That means I have to be super extra ultra early when I start my travel, just to be sure I can reliably make the flight. And when I return, depending on my flight and whether it was on time, I might have to wait an hour or more before I can even start the train ride back.

So I'm going to drive.

I have rarely EVER looked at public transportation and thought it was better than driving. It's not. Between infrequent schedules, unreliability, line work, and the public transit system failing to take responsibility for making people miss connections (like flights!), it's not worth it as anything more than a novelty.

If you are thinking about it on paper, the bus running every half hour doesn't sound so bad, until you're waiting at the stop and you miss a bus or it's delayed. Then you're waiting a very, very long time. To people who never take transit, that's probably fine. Why do you care. To people who only take transit, they're expecting it, it's baked in their lives. But the important part, what really impacts our cities, is what happens to people for whom transit is an option.

The spiral goes like this. You go to take the bus instead of driving, thinking "I'm going to o have a couple drinks" or "I don't want to worry about parking where I'm going." So you take bus. First bus is right on time. But then you transfer from your neighborhood line to the line that takes you where you actually want to go. And your bus is delayed. And it only comes every 30 minutes. And then you're waiting, 40 minutes later, wondering where your bus is, knowing you could have driven there in 20 minutes.

Why would you ever chose to take a bus again? The bus made you waste precious time on your day off just sitting there. So next time you drive. Ridership goes down. When the transit authority asks for more money for more buses and more drivers, people point to the ridership numbers and say "why should we pay for this instead of paying for our schools/police/baseball stadium/parks/police again (let's be real that's who's taking all the money)?" If we want to increase ridership we need to actually design and fund functional transit networks. If we want people to actually ride the bus we need to make it a better option than driving, which means reliable service, which you don't get with a bus every 30 minutes.

Every 15 minutes, everywhere, all of the time.

[themorningnewsinformer]

How 5G Networks Are Enabling Smart Cities Around the World

Introduction: The Rise of 5G and Smart Cities With the global rollout of 5G networks accelerating in 2025, cities worldwide are harnessing this ultra-fast connectivity to develop smart urban environments. Smart cities use digital technologies to improve infrastructure, sustainability, and residents’ quality of life. The transformative power of 5G lies in its ability to connect billions of…