An Artificially Intelligent Housing System? The Housing Crisis and the Emergence of AI

2026-01-12 - 2026-01-31

Dr. Sophia Maalsen

Room 405, Department of Geography, National Taiwan University

 

Speaker: 

Dr. Sophia Maalsen (Senior Lecturer at School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney）

Sophia Maalsen is a former ARC DECRA Fellow and senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. She is interested in how the translation of computational logics and technologies, including AI, are being applied to address issues of housing affordability and innovation, as well as looking at the potential role of technologies in tenant advocacy. Her research is predominantly situated at the intersection of the digital and material across urban spaces and governance, housing, and feminism, with particular interest in the digital mediation and reconfiguration of relationships across these spaces.

Date: January 12, 2026 (Mon), 14:00-16:00
Venue: Room 405, Department of Geography, National Taiwan University
Notes:

● The lecture will be conducted in English.

● This lecture is for in-person attendance only and requires online pre-registration ➥ Registration Link. Registration Deadline: 1/9.

🔶Abstract

The housing sector is “on the verge of a transformative revolution as AI emerges as a powerful tool” with the technology touted as a solution to the myriad of factors driving a global housing crisis (Housing Sector UK 2025). The World Bank claims that “AI can address the global housing deficit” (Walley et al 2023), while in Australia, former NSW Housing Minister Paul Scully argued that there is “zero per cent chance of meeting supply unless the government and sector immediately adopt AI technology” (Fuller 2023). The logic of these claims is that AI can help solve the housing crisis through increased efficiency, optimisation, and better use of data analytics. This is exemplified by Government endorsed use of AI in planning such as the Extract tool in the UK and the NSW AI in planning program, both intended to speed up the development approval process and housing delivery. Yet there is concern that the application of AI may exacerbate existing inequity in the housing system, present privacy risks, entrench private over public interest and further entrench intergenerational inequality under a guise of tech determined neutrality (Safransky 2020). For example, AI tenant screening apps such as US-based SafeRent have been taken to court over consistently scoring black and Hispanic applicants lower than white applicants, directly negatively impacting their access to housing (Rhoades 2024), while the overcollection of data by tenant application platforms has been a site of regulatory attention in Australia.

In this presentation I will look at the way that technologies such as AI are being mobilised in discourse and in practice to address the housing crisis. I will identify some core gaps in our understanding that we need to pay attention to and present a landscape of the housing system that can work as a lens help us think through the application of AI in housing, before offering two possible ways to move research on housing and AI forward. I also propose a methodological orientation that will enable us to open up new ways of thinking about the impacts of AI in housing. Advancing beyond conventional approaches I draw inspiration from Hayles (2017), Maalsen (2023) and Iapaolo and Lynch (2025) to position AI as cognisers and collaborators in producing the housing system but which also opens up novel ways for intervention and resistance. 

 

Organizers:

Institute of Science, Technology and Society, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

"Environmental Crises and Multi-species Justice in the 21st Century: Toward Decolonization Beyond the Human" Research Cluster, International Center for Cultural Studies (ICCS), National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Co-organizers: 

Department of Geography, National Taiwan University

National Science and Technology Council (NSTC)

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