This AI Can Predict How Rich Your Neighborhood Is From Space

Th satellite mapping company DigitalGlobe tapped San Francisco design studio Stamen Design to build a machine learning-powered mapping tool that takes income data and satellite imagery to predict average income of city blocks. Called Penny, the program analyzes the shapes, colors, and lines that make up a satellite image. Using corresponding Census data, it looks for patterns between different urban features and income levels. With that information, the algorithm can then guess what the income level is of any given area you point it at–provided it's in the same city the algorithm was trained on. Take, for example, the New York version: Hover over the World Trade Center, and Penny is 86% confident that it's a high-income area; hover over Harlem, and Penny is 99% confident that it's a low-income area.