ACM SIGAI Autonomous Agents research award

ABSTRACT: As the digital economy continues to grow apace, this is a good moment to reflect on the progress made in finding a bridge between artificial intelligence, markets and machine learning. Some themes that I plan to highlight include the role of preference elicitation, the importance of temporal dynamics, the leverage that can come from data and machine learning, and the renewed interest in market-based optimization. Looking ahead, an effective agent-mediated economy will require that AIs represent individual preferences and that system designs capture our values as society.

SHORT BIO: David C. Parkes is George F. Colony Professor of Computer Science, Harvard College Professor, and Area Dean for Computer Science at Harvard University, where he founded the EconCS research group and leads research with a focus on market design, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. He is co-director of the Harvard University Data Science Initiative. Parkes served on the inaugural panel of the Stanford 100 Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, and co-organized the 2016 OSTP Workshop on AI for Social Good. He served as chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Electronic Commerce (2011-16), and was Treasurer of IFAAMAS (2008-13). Parkes is Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and recipient of the 2017 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award, the NSF Career Award, the Alfred P.~Sloan Fellowship, the Thouron Scholarship, and the Roslyn Abramson Award for Teaching. Parkes has degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of Pennsylvania, serves on several international scientific advisory boards, and has been a technical advisor to a number of start-ups.