Milind Tambe

"I’ve been very fortunate to pursue theoretical research and apply AI, finding a way to use it to advance the cause of social justice."

"I’ve usually oriented my research towards producing theoretical breakthroughs via application. The gap between the applied and the theoretical is not that huge. Although people often make the mistake of thinking they’re opposite to one another, this is not the case."

"Personally, my theoretical focus has been on computational game theory, for example. I’ve witnessed cycles in AI where one particular technology suddenly takes over, and DL has certainly carried its weight with its wide-ranging applications."

"As we get closer to limits in these approaches, it’ll become evident that other facets of AI need to be explored."

"a weird quirk I’ve observed is that people are often hesitant towards applying AI towards security work. One of my students was using campus police data to determine where crimes may occur in and around campus. When we presented this at a conference, people were generally taken aback by our findings."

"In my opinion, there needs to be a rehabilitation of sorts for the classes of society that will face the brunt of job loss, like truck drivers when it comes to self-driving tech. While many people will face some crises in this transition, I believe it’ll be a good change in the end. In that sense, I’m more optimistic about AI’s effect on jobs."