On defaults and delegation in decision-making – Introducing the labs and some of the ongoing human-AI interaction projects
Abstract: After an introduction of the Brussels’ AI ecosystem and some of the research lines currently explored in the team, this presentation will zoom in on two projects recently completed. The first asked the question how people deal with defaults in decision-making tasks. We often ignore the default settings just to be able to use some platform, but this may have consequences. I will show what to expect from pro-social versus pro-self defaults in a resource extraction problem (e.g. energy sharing). The second project explored the question whether delegating decision-making to an AI leads to better societal outcomes than when people act themselves. Outsourcing to an AI may be better given the potential for a conflict of interest between a principal and human agent. In the context of a collective risk dilemma (e.g. climate action problem), I will show how switching from a human agent to an artificial one affects the decision-making process. Both projects are part of our Social AI program where we aim to, on the one hand, understand the impact of using AI systems in decision-making processes and, on the other hand, design AI systems to achieve beneficial and fair outcomes, both for the user and society.
Short bio: Tom Lenaerts (PhD 2003) is Professor in the Computer Science department at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where he is co-heading the Machine Learning Group (MLG). He holds also a partial affiliation as research professor with the Artificial Intelligence Lab of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and is affiliated researcher at the Center for Human-Compatible AI of UC Berkeley. He was board member, vice-chair and finally chair of the Benelux Association for Artificial Intelligence between 2016 and 2024. He currently is one of the academic directors of FARI, the Brussels AI for Common Good institute, AI expert in the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence and national contact point for the CAIRNE hub in Brussels. He has been publishing in a variety of interdisciplinary domains on AI and Machine Learning, involving topics related to optimization, multi-agent systems, collective intelligence, evolutionary game theory, AI governance, computational biology and bioinformatics.
Presenter: Tom Lenaerts (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Date: 2025-02-28 11:30 (CET)
Location: Oficinas ELLIS Alicante, Muelle Pte., 5 – Edificio A, Alicante 03001, Alicante ES
This talk is part of the ELLIS / ULB-MLG Workshop.