Date and time: April 4, Friday, 12:15-1:45pm
Location: Rice 109
Title: Recent Progress in the Metric Voting Problem
Abstract:
Computational social choice lies at the intersection of social science (e.g., voting theory, social choice theory) and computer science. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of this field, with a focus on the metrice voting problem. In this problem, voters and candidates are in an unknown metric space. The goal is to design a voting rule that selects a candidate minimizing the social cost (incurred by this candidate), defined as the sum of distance from this candidate to all voters. We will discuss recent progress in this area, including the existing techniques used in the literature to establish upper and lower bounds for the problem. No prior knowledge of social choice theory is required.
Bio:
Zirou is a Ph.D. student at UVA working with Madhav Marathe. He studies computational social science and combinatorial optimization.Â