Index

Lecture series are sponsored by

Prof. Robert Kleinberg (Cornell University)

Abstract: Learning and decision-making problems often boil down to a balancing act between exploring new possibilities and exploiting the best known one. For more than fifty years, the multi-armed bandit problem has been the predominant theoretical model for investigating these issues. The emergence of the Web as a platform for sequential experimentation at a massive scale is leading to shifts in our understanding of this fundamental problem as we confront new challenges and opportunities. I will present two recent pieces of work addressing these challenges. The first concerns the misalignment of incentives in systems, such as online product reviews and citizen science platforms that depend on a large population of users to explore a space of options. The second concerns situations in which the learner's actions consume one or more limited-supply resources, as when a ticket seller experiments with prices for an event with limited seating.

Short Bio: Robert Kleinberg is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, currently on leave at Microsoft Research New England. His research studies the design and analysis of algorithms, and their relations to economics, learning theory, and networks. Prior to receiving his doctorate from MIT in 2005, Kleinberg spent three years at Akamai Technologies, where he assisted in designing the world's largest Internet Content Delivery Network. He is the recipient of a Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and an NSF CAREER Award.