Ethical Imaginaries of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence

The convergence between Geography and AI promises innovative applications and digital services for many fields, such as epidemiology and public health, marketing, environmental monitoring and disaster management, urban planning, and navigation. In terms of ethics, such emerging technology presents several issues at different scales. Bias and ethical issues are already part of the debate inside the GeoAI community, mainly about transparency, justice & fairness, non-maleficence, responsibility and privacy. Understanding the potential and the risks of GeoAI might provide guidance and counter measures for the industry, policy makers, and communities. A transparent and standardised open data global policy might provide a sustainable and global solution in the long term. It is here recommended to consider both technical and social aspects in order to frame ethical issues by a sociotechnical approach and intervene in the emerging coproduction of the sociotechnical imaginary of GeoAI.