Eye, Robot: A Generative AI Approach to Measuring Subjective Assessments from Street View Images at Scale
We introduce a new method for measuring subjective perceptions at scale using innovations in both crowd-sourced image data and transformer-based computer vision technology. We aim to uncover the relationships between perceived neighbourhood conditions and political outcomes, potentially offering new insights into how urban environments shape politics. Our approach relies on a novel dataset of 360-degree street-level images from Mapillary, a non-proprietary crowd-sourced alternative to Google Street View.