How AI Envisions American Neighborhoods

In a blog post on Medium, Chris Steins provides “An AI-inspired visual tour of some of America’s most digitally rendered iconic neighborhoods.”

The images illustrate the power and limits of artificial intelligence when it comes to interpreting “the essence” of a place as described in words, including the typical subtle AI glitches and ‘uncanny valley’ feel (the Miami image essentially looks like a screenshot from ‘Barbie’).

The renderings all seem to show neighborhoods as their quietest and most residential, showing primarily single-family homes, cars parked curbside, and a marked absence of people—despite the fact that many of the cities in question are some of the nation’s densest and most populated. Even the New York City image manages to include a plethora of foregrounded cars and no humans. It seems that when AI seeks out information about U.S. cities, it finds sterile, auto-oriented, suburban neighborhoods. Is it wrong?