The Geography of Algorithmic Judgment: LLM Intermediaries, Place Identity, and Racial Steering in Housing Search
Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly assuming an intermediary role in housing search through the integration of listing platforms within conversational interfaces, mediating access to information, search, and recommendations within urban settings. We expand on prior work on racial steering in LLMs by conducting a behavioral audit of seven open-weight and closed-source LLMs across four U.S. cities, testing location recommendations across three iterative prompting conditions that progressively add lifestyle preference context and reflect fair housing paired-testing methodologies. We find that steering is an emergent behavior of the model's interpretive license rather than primarily a st...
| Authors | Hana Samad, Trung Lam, Christoph Mügge-Durum et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.LG |
| Published | 4 June 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 13 October 2026 |
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