Antonio Vásquez: Shortage of skilled staff limits AI use in city planning

Severe shortage of skilled public-sector staff and the migration of trained specialists to commercial companies are the main barriers to the long-term implementation of artificial intelligence in municipal planning, stated Antonio Vásquez, an artificial intelligence specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank, at WUF13 in Baku, according to Report.

He said that the challenge of mapping slums is not in the complexity of the technology itself, but in the human factor. Public sector work is often not sufficiently well paid, which leads to significant staff turnover.

"Local authorities find it very difficult to retain talent, so in government offices there is often simply no one to maintain the continuous operation of AI systems for regular map updates," he said.

He added that the shortage of specialists in Earth observation data processing significantly slows down the transition of municipalities to continuous monitoring of urban change, despite the rapid decline in the cost of the technology itself.