How AI can help make cities work better for residents

Shortly after joining MIT in 2012, Williams created the Civic Data Design Lab to bridge that divide. Over the years, she and her colleagues have pushed the narrative and expository bounds of urban planning data using the latest technologies available--making numbers vivid and accessible through human stories and striking graphics. One project she was involved in, on rates of incarceration in New York City by neighborhood, is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Williams's other projects have tracked the spread and impact of air pollution in Beijing using air quality monitors and mapped the daily commutes of Nairobi residents using geographic information systems. Cities should be transparent in how they're using AI and what its limitations are.