The latest edition of my Optimized Democracy course at Harvard — including recorded lectures — is now online at tinyurl.com/2wrythm6. The goal is to 'provide students with a rigorous perspective on, and a technical toolbox for, the design of better democratic systems.'

I liked my talk about citizens' assemblies so much that it took me three years to switch to a different topic. But the last iteration — an ECAI'23 keynote, which I consider to be the definitive version — is now online, courtesy of the PC chair Kobi Gal's AI & DS Lab.

youtube.com/watch?v=ji-uVx…

Our work with Narges Ahani, Paul Gölz (Mastodon in bio), Ariel Procaccia, and Andy Trapp on dynamic refugee assignment with HIAS has featured in Comms of Association for Computing Machinery: cacm.acm.org/research/dynam… 🤯
Thank you Daniel Freund for a *wonderful* discussion of it: cacm.acm.org/opinion/techni… 🙏

It was exciting to participate in this program. It wasn't only an important step in a promising direction for AI alignment but also an impetus for democratic innovations that could be more broadly applicable. Check out the excellent work of all ten teams below.

Kalai Prize 2024 for best paper at the interface of #gametheory & #computer_science !
I assign it 'every' term for class discussion; super glad to see it being recognized. A must read if interested in algorithmic fairness!

Congrats to Nisarg Shah Ariel Procaccia Ioannis Caragiannis

The thoroughly revised version of our generative social choice paper includes results from OpenAI's 'Democratic Inputs to AI' program. For example, 93% of pilot participants are 'perfectly' or 'mostly' represented by the outcome generated by our process.

arxiv.org/abs/2309.01291

On 10/26, join the Burnes Center and The GovLab for the next Rebooting Democracy event with Ariel Procaccia Robert Bjarnason and Colin Megill on 'AI for Citizen Engagement.' RSVP: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regist… Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern Polis Harvard University Citizens Foundation

July 2019: Ariel Procaccia and I have a coffee in Phoenix, AZ, at ACM SIGecom EC'19. We talk about how we can improve refugee resettlement. A ~week later we have a joint call w Paul Gölz (Mastodon in bio), Narges + Andy. September 2023: pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.128…. Thank you friends + HIAS!

Israel needs a constitution to avert a brewing crisis, but who can be trusted to create one? Depending on how much you've heard about citizens' assemblies, I suspect you'll find our answer either surprising or totally predictable. 

wapo.st/45UF4jz

Excited to share our paper on generative social choice, which 'fuses the rigor of social choice theory with the flexibility and power of generative AI.' We plan to put this approach into action soon as part of OpenAI's 'Democratic Inputs to AI' program.

arxiv.org/pdf/2309.01291…

At the public lectures celebration in Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in honour of Hervé Moulin in the historic Sorbonne Amphitheater. CES - UMR8174

Excellent piece by Ariel Procaccia explaining sortition - the philosophical premise of it, as well as how the Ancient Greeks’ Kleroterian worked, and the very sophisticated modern day version (effectively, algorithms) work. With great visuals. scientificamerican.com/article/citize… #delibwave

Public conference of the #ChairBlaisePascal Région Île-de-France introduced by Christine Neau-Leduc Christine

Two-day celebration in Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in honour of Hervé Moulin (@UofGlasgow)

4th Nov: Lectures by Ariel Procaccia, @MFleurbaey & Alvin Roth (Econ Nobel Prize)
cutt.ly/4BUoRNf

I feel like the universe is trying to clue me in, but I can't quite tell if that's supposed to be an equal or not equal sign.

This well-researched The New York Times op-ed by Thomas Edsall about belief polarization paints a pessimistic picture. Among many other papers, Edsall discusses our 2021 PNAS paper with Nika Haghtalab and Matthew Jackson, which takes a learning-theoretic approach.

nytimes.com/2022/08/10/opi…

#IJCAI2022 🏆 2022 AIJ Prominent Paper Award, is awarded to
⚡Optimal social choice functions: A utilitarian view
🖊 Craig Boutilier
🖊Ioannis Caragiannis
🖊 Simi Haber Bar-Ilan University
🖊Tyler Lu, Google
🖊Ariel Procaccia Ariel Procaccia
🖊Or Sheffet Bar-Ilan University

aij.ijcai.org/aij-awards-lis…

We hope to fail to make the panel a failure.

It was a privilege to participate in this panel discussion with economists and legal scholars doing inspiring work in refugee resettlement: Alex Teytelboym, Cathryn Costello, Zakaria Al Shmaly and Liav Orgad.

youtu.be/AnNi9j1CsTQ

How might we use algorithms to strengthen democracy? In the latest #TorontoSRI Seminar, Ariel Procaccia explores his recent work on designing randomized selection algorithms to create citizens’ assemblies.

📺 Watch it here: youtu.be/e7FwWfUcZTg