So launches RT Lab to repair racial harms upheld by urban technologies

A new research initiative led by Taubman College’s Wonyoung So, assistant professor of urban technology, is working to uncover and address invisible inequities behind urban technologies. The Reparative Technology Lab — RT Lab for short — studies how emerging technologies collect data and train algorithms to learn how they might also hide historical and racial injustice. Based on its findings, the lab develops new algorithms that counter these harms, and data tools and visualizations to inform and engage the communities they serve. 

By uncovering how urban technologies can formalize the disconnect between intended outcomes and past wrongs by removing context from data, So aims to shift the development of new urban technologies toward righting these wrongs. Specifically, he is interested in housing and how “landlord tech,” including data-driven, race-neutral tenant-screening applications, upholds historic efforts to exclude underrepresented communities, despite omitting race data from the process.

For more, visit r-t-lab.org.