The Role of Generative AI in Sustainable Smart Cities: Opportunities and Ethical Challenges

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly emerging as a transformative force in the evolution of smart cities, offering unprecedented opportunities to advance sustainability goals. By enabling rapid scenario generation, data augmentation, urban design prototyping, and multilingual citizen engagement, GenAI can enhance energy efficiency, optimize mobility, support resilient infrastructure, and promote inclusive governance. However, its integration into urban ecosystems also raises critical ethical concerns. These include risks of surveillance and privacy violations, algorithmic bias that can deepen inequalities, opacity in automated decision-making, misinformation in public consultations, economic displacement of skilled professionals, and the environmental costs of model training and deployment. This paper explores the dual role of GenAI in sustainable smart cities highlighting both opportunities and ethical challenges. Through conceptual diagrams, application tables, and a governance framework, the study provides insights for policymakers, urban planners, and technologists to responsibly harness GenAI in building cities that are not only smart but also sustainable, equitable, and trustworthy.