    In a field as new as artificial intelligence, it is expected to have a long list
of unanswered questions both technical and ethical. Although artificial
intelligence likely will benefit society in many ways, it is impossible to tell
whether the application of these technologies will be a net positive or a
negative to society. The Stanford One Hundred Year Study suggests that as
artificial intelligence improves and proper government regulation is put in
place, the transportation problems in cities will be largely reduced. In some
cities, this is likely to be the case however, the study fails to acknowledge
that some of the world’s largest and busiest cities do not have the road
infrastructure in place that would be necessary to truly leverage new artificial
intelligence technology assuming it functions to an acceptable standard.
    New York city is a city that is overpopulated. The public transportation system
is overwhelmed by both tourists and daily commuters. Often, people would have to
wait on the platform for the next subway train to arrive as the previous train
would only be able to hold half the people waiting on the platform. This forces
many people to hire taxis to quickly travel throughout the city. If self-driving
cars were driving on the streets of Manhattan, New York’s overcrowded
infrastructure would still be far from solved. Perhaps, instead of calling a
taxi, people would be able to call their own car to drive them whether they must
go, but the logistics of having so many cars in the city is a problem that
cannot be ignored. The current infrastructure is bad and put simply, New York is
not a car friendly city. Whether the cars are self-driving or not does not
change the fact that New York has trouble supporting automobiles.  Another city
infrastructure issue is parking and even with advances in artificial
intelligence, parking will remain an issue. A possible solution to the
overabundance of cars in Manhattan could be ride sharing but as the study
mentions, ridesharing applications have failed to gain traction.
    Saint Petersburg, Russia is another example of a city that would struggle to
benefit from adopting self-driving cars into their city infrastructure. Because
Saint Petersburg is a network of five districts that are separated by canals,
cars must drive over bridges to travel between the districts. Due to ship
traffic in the canals, the bridges all rise early in the morning. This
creates a massive logistical problem for the free movement of autonomous
vehicles. What are the vehicles expected to do during the window that the
draw bridges are open? Surely they cannot be expected to park and wait
until the bridges open as that would be horribly inefficient. What happens
if many of the cars are stuck on one island and can’t be summoned for a
ride for a few hours? These are questions that must be answered before
this technology can benefit the city infrastructure and reduce overall
traffic while increasing transportation efficiency.
    As the technology continues to advance in artificial intelligence, we need
to focus on how we will effectively apply the new technology so that
society can reap the benefits. It is difficult to predict how artificial
intelligence will fit in our society but with proper planning, it likely
will be net positive. While the Stanford One Hundred Year Study
illustrates many applications for artificial intelligence in a variety of
industries, it fails to address that issues associated with city
infrastructure are complex problems that will not be easily fixed.
