Mobility and Cities from the Perspective of Foundation Models

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Massimiliano Luca

ABSTRACT
Every day, foundation models are deployed into services made available to millions of people. Thus, understanding the limits and advantages these models can bring with them is becoming prominent, and understanding how such models can help in urban contexts is no exception. In this talk, we will go through some studies exploring how (and if) to leverage foundation models as tools to deal with some challenges related to mobility patterns and other aspects of our cities. For instance, we will explore how language models can be used to predict the future whereabouts of individuals and aggregate demand prediction even in data-scarce scenarios. Similarly, we will explore how such language models can perform text-based generation of mobility and how realistic such trajectories can be. At the same time, it is also important to understand which biases and stereotypes foundation models are bringing with them. An example that I will share is how vision foundation models perceive our cities in terms of safety, highlighting emerging biases and potentialities.