Sendhil Mullainathan
The Peter de Florez Professor, In Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Economics at MIT  will be on campus as a Dean of Faculty Messenger Lecturer and a Data Science Distinguished Lecture for the Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society.  Professor Mullainathan will be giving three talks Monday Nov. 11 - Wednesday, Nov. 13.   

This is the second talk in the Messenger series and the Data Science Distinguished Lecture series and is co-sponsored with the CS Colloquium and the ORIE Colloquium.  

Talk Title:  Incorporating Behavioral Science into Computational Science 
Tuesday, November 12
Time: 11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Location: Gates Hall, G01
Reception prior at 11:15 a.m.

Description: I will describe several projects that incorporate our understanding of humans into how we build and evaluate algorithmic systems, such as supervised learners or large language models. 

Lecture available on Zoom.
ZOOM Meeting ID: 924 9911 8564
Passcode: 388714

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OTHER TALKS IN THE SERIES:

Monday, November 11
PUBLIC LECTURE: Tools of Thought: Building Algorithms that Enhance Human Capacity
Time: 3:45 pm - 4:45 pm
Location:   Baker Lab, 200 (259 East Ave)
reception following in the Baker Portico

The biggest proponents for AI lack no confidence. We are close, they argue, to being able to build algorithms that do everything humans can. The problem with this vision is not hubris, quite the opposite. I will argue that it lacks ambition.  Computing will have the biggest (positive) impact on society not from algorithms doing what we already do cheaper or in silico; but from doing things that humans cannot even dream of. In effect, we want thought partners, not substitutes. Building such algorithms requires that we integrate our knowledge of people with our knowledge of computing. I will illustrate with several examples. 

Wednesday, November 13
Incorporating Algorithms into Economics and Policy
Co-sponsored with the Law, Economics, and Policy Seminar
Time: 1:30pm – 2:45 pm
Location: ILR Conference Center, Room 423

I will describe how algorithms can have outsized impact on public policy specifically; and economics more broadly. 

BIO: Professor Mullainathan is a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” has been designated a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, was labeled a “Top 100 Thinker” by Foreign Policy Magazine, and was named to the “Smart List: 50 people who will change the world” by Wired Magazine (UK).experiments—to study social problems such as discrimination and poverty. He recently co-authored the book Scarcity: Why Having too Little Means so Much and writes regularly for the New York Times. Professor Mullainathan helped co-found a non-profit to apply behavioral science (ideas42), co-founded a center to promote the use of randomized control trials in development (the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab), serves on the board of the MacArthur Foundation, has worked in government in various roles, is affiliated with the NBER and BREAD, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.His current research uses machine learning to understand complex problems in human behavior, social policy, and especially medicine, where computational techniques have the potential to uncover biomedical insights from large-scale health data.