PLANNERS' Artificial Intelligence DILEMMAS

a collaborative research project about technology potentials and ethics in professional planning

About this Project

how it began / where it's going

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Download your Dilemma Cards

Available at ResearchGate

Publications

and other stuff

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About us

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share your ai dilemma

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This project is supported by Dr. Pamela Robinson’s “Reshaping AI Local Governance in Canada” SSHRC Insight Grant (2025-2029).

About This Project

This project began in early 2024 with a research report for IAP2 Canada examining AI's potential and ethical challenges in public participation practice. That report seeded the first workshop, built and run for the IAP2 National Conference in October 2024. In that workshop, for the first time, we put AI-related ethical dilemma cards on a table and asked engagement practitioners to sit with hard questions together. It worked. And it kept growing.

Since then, the workshop has been refined and reimagined through successive outings: the Alberta Planners Institute (2024), the Canadian Institute of Planners National Conference (2025) the American Planning Association National Conference (2026), the Nova Scotia Planning Conference (2026), and most recently the Canadian Institute of Planners national conference in July 2026. Each iteration has brought new scenarios, retired ones that weren't pulling their weight, and pushed the format further. What started as a single deck of dilemmas now includes a structured discussion framework, some new provocations and an engagement with Canada's newly released Professional Standards Board Ethical Standards that asks planners to stress-test those principles against near-future AI scenarios.

In a time of rapid technological change, we believe in the power of planners coming together around a table rolling up their sleeves, speaking honestly about what's working and what isn't, and staying in conversation about what the profession still needs to figure out. No algorithm does that. People do.The workshop is grounded in ongoing research. It is supported by the Reshaping AI Local Governance in Canada SSHRC Insight Grant (2025–2029) at Toronto Metropolitan University.

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About us

Dr. Pamela Robinson RPP FCIP is a professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) and Academic Director at City Building TMU. Throughout her career as a planner her research and practice have focused on complex, emergent challenges that Canadian communities face. Her current SSHRC funded research asks: how do we rightsize local government’s role in AI governance and how do we engage the public in AI governance? In 2020 Pamela received the inaugural Canadian Institute of Planners President’s Award: Academic. She is an Advisor on the Toronto Public Library’s Innovation Council and serves on the Board of Directors for the Metcalf Foundation.

Morgan Boyco LPP MCIP is a PhD Candidate in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. Morgan’s research focuses on public participation, contemporary planning and democracy theory, and the use of the latest digital civic engagement technologies to support local public participation processes. Morgan is also a professional planner and community engagement practitioner at Dillon Consulting, working with municipalities across Canada to more effectively involve community members in local decision-making processes.

Julia Menezes is a graduate of the Master of Planning in Urban Development program at Toronto Metropolitan University with professional and research experience at the intersection of community engagement, housing justice, and belonging in urban space. Julia’s work often integrates visual communication, a skillset Julia was excited to bring to this collaborative research project. Julia will be pursuing PhD studies in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto with a focus on social equity, participatory planning, and public engagement.

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