Big Data and machine learning (ML) are outstanding strategies for city planners and managers to improve their decisions and enable predictability and stability. They work particularly well, when the future is a continuation of the past. Unfortunately, the very technologies these tools are built on also facilitate transformative changes of economy and society, leading to disruption. In such disruptive times, the future is quite unlike the past – or, technically speaking, there is simply not enough training data for Big Data and ML to bring about stability.

Taking a cue from nature, therefore, in times of disruption the best strategy is massive experimentation. In the context of the eyes of the city, we suggest such experimentation is best enabled by creating moments of void, of temporary disconnection and disorientation. We ask the eyes of the city to blink – to enable, as we explain in greater detail in our submission, interventions such as the social island, the data DMZ or the Terrain Vague, among others.

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Karl-Heinz Machat