Milind Tambe: AI for Social Impact

With the maturing of AI and multiagent systems research, we have a tremendous opportunity to direct these advances towards addressing complex societal problems. I will focus on domains of public health and conservation, and address one key cross-cutting challenge: how to effectively deploy our limited intervention resources in these problem domains. I will present results from work around the globe in using AI for challenges such as HIV prevention, Maternal and Childcare interventions, and as well as for wildlife conservation. Achieving social impact in these domains often requires methodological advances. To that end, I will highlight key research advances in multiagent reasoning and learning, particularly in restless multiarmed bandits, influence maximization in social networks, computational game theory and decision-focused learning. In pushing this research agenda, our goal is to facilitate local communities and non-profits to directly benefit from advances in AI tools and techniques.

Milind Tambe is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Director of Center for Research in Computation and Society at Harvard University; concurrently, he is also Director "AI for Social Good" at Google Research India. He is recipient of the IJCAI John McCarthy Award, AAMAS ACM Autonomous Agents Research Award, AAAI Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture Award, and he is a fellow of AAAI and ACM. He is also a recipient of the INFORMS Wagner prize for excellence in Operations Research practice and Rist Prize from MORS. For his work on AI and public safety, he has received Columbus Fellowship Foundation Homeland security award and commendations and certificates of appreciation from the US Coast Guard, the Federal Air Marshals Service and airport police at the city of Los Angeles.