Tutorial on Computational Social Choice at ECAI-2010
Social choice theory deals with questions regarding the design and analysis of methods for collective decision making. Examples for such methods include voting procedures and protocols for fairly dividing a set of goods amongst the members of a group. In recent years there has been a growing interest in the computational aspects of collective decision making, giving rise to the field of computational social choice. This tutorial will give an overview of this new field, highlighting contributions of and opportunities for AI. It will be accessible to anyone working in AI.
The following survey papers together provide a good overview of the main topics covered in the tutorial:
- Y. Chevaleyre, U. Endriss, J. Lang, and N. Maudet.
A Short Introduction to Computational Social Choice.
Proc. 33rd Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science (SOFSEM-2007), Springer-Verlag, 2007.
- Y. Chevaleyre, U. Endriss, J. Lang, and N. Maudet.
Preference Handling in Combinatorial Domains: From AI to Social Choice.
AI Magazine, 29(4):37-46, 2008.
- P. Faliszewski and A.D. Procaccia.
AI's War on Manipulation: Are We Winning?
AI Magazine. In press (2010).
- C. List.
The Theory of Judgment Aggregation: An Introductory Review.
Synthese. In press (2010).
- U. Endriss.
Lecture Notes on Fair Division.
ILLC, University of Amsterdam, 2010.
For further reading on classical (as opposed to computational) social choice there are several good textbooks available. I specifically recommend these:
- W. Gaertner.
A Primer in Social Choice Theory.
Revised edition. LSE Perspectives in Economic Analysis.
Oxford University Press, 2009.
- H. Moulin.
Axioms of Cooperative Decision Making.
Econometric Society Monographs.
Cambridge University Press, 1988.
- A.D. Taylor.
Social Choice and the Mathematics of Manipulation.
Cambridge University Press, 2005.
I have previosuly given a (somewhat longer) variant of this tutorial at ESSLLI-2008. For much more material, see my course on computational social choice, given annually at the ILLC.
Visit the COMSOC website to find out about the COMSOC workshops and related events, to browse through a list of PhD theses in the field, and to join the mailing list.