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).
AI4S group will present 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 schedule below.
Biplav to give 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 to give an invited talk at Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) Annual Summit, elections track, at Orlando, FL, June 21-24, 2026.
Dr. Kausik and Dr. Vishal were hooded on May 7, 2026, having defended dissertations in Feb and March, respectively (details).
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