Historically, AI has done well only when not near humans. AI for Society (AI4S) group at the AI Institute is focused on enabling people to make rational decisions despite real-world complexities of poor data, changing goals, and limited resources by augmenting their cognitive limitations with technology. Lead by Prof. Biplav Srivastava, the group works in neuro-symbolic methods, trusted AI, and applications of data-driven methods to society. We innovate as well as apply AI techniques for hard problems facing the society with an inclusive, value-driven, focus.
Our differentiating initiatives include working with language models for automated planning, including building compact foundation models for planning-like tasks and creating ontologies for automated planning (generalized planning), black-box assessment and rating for AI (GAICO and ARC tools), group recommendation, metacognition-based SOFAI tool to combine fast (e.g., LLMs) and slow thinking (e.g., reasoners), and exploring AI like chatbots in trust-sensitive domains, viz. elections, nutrition (meals), exercises (Yoga), opinion networks, and traffic (for SC).
Received NSF ICorps award, 2026-2027, to explore technology transfer potential of a Generative AI evaluation tool (GAICo) for businesses (details) [GenAI, Domain Evaluation].
A book titled 'Assessing, Explaining, and Rating AI Systems for Trust - With Applications in Finance', is being released in Aug by Springer Nature (Amazon).
Biplav completes the second VAIBHAV Fellowship (2025-2028; 17 among 216 selected globally) visit for summer work with IIT-BHU on using AI (group recommendation) and sensors for personalized recommendation and monitoring of Yoga's Surya Namaskara (SN; sun salutation) regimen. See project page for details.
Received funding from South Carolina Research Authority, 2026-2027, Trustworthy Evalution and Usage of Generative AI for Accelerated Benefits [GenAI, Domain Evaluation].
Our paper HI-MAPF - Towards Resource-Efficient Multi-Agent Deployment was accepted to the 2026 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (acceptance rate: 36%). [Paper] [Project] [Video]
AI4S group presented two research papers, two workshop papers, and a tutorial at the 36th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS 2026), Dublin, Ireland, June 27–July 2, 2026. See the June NewsLog entry for presentation pointers.
Biplav gave a keynote talk, titled Creating and Using AI Testcases for Promoting Reproducibility, at NAIRR Pilot Classroom Expansion Conference: Capacity and Community for Research-Emerging Institutions with Large Computing Programs by CRA/NSF at Orlando, FL, June 18-19, 2026 (agenda).
Biplav gave an invited talk at Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) Annual Summit, elections track, at Orlando, FL, June 21-24, 2026.
See more news items, since 2020, here.
