Computers are starting to outperform the average human at negotiation

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Computers are starting to outperform the average human at negotiation

When computer scientist Tim Baarslag had to negotiate the purchase of his new house, he developed an algorithm to help him. Thanks to the algorithm, he managed to buy his favorite house for only $1,500 more than the bid of the next-highest bidder.

Baarslag works at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), the national research institute for mathematics and computer science in the Netherlands, where he studies how computers can help humans to negotiate better deals. He also is co-organizer of the Automated Negotiating Agents Competition (ANAC), a contest that has been held annually since 2010; this year, it took place in July during the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Stockholm, Sweden.

At IJCAI, Baarslag answered some questions for Bennie Mols.

What is the purpose of the Automated Negotiating Agents Competition?
For humans, negotiations are often very complex and stressful; think about buying a house, or negotiating about a job. What if computers can help us with this? That would be great, but then we have to know how well computers perform. With ANAC, we want in the first place to compare negotiating computers in the same domain. The competition is also a way to collect a state of the art repository of negotiating agents and their results. Finally, the competition is a way to steer the academic research.

Read the full article on the website of the ACM.

Honors and Awards

Nomination Eureka book Prize 2008
My book OPGELOST - Toepassingen van wiskunde en informatica (which translates as SOLVED - Applications of mathematics and informatics) was nominated for the Eureka book Prize 2008, for the best popular science book.

Amundsen Competition 2007
In december 2007 I was one of fourteen winners in the Amundsen Competition, an essay competiton organised by the World Federation of Science Journalists for the International Polar Year 2007/2008. The price is a two-weeks trip on board of the Arctic Polar Icebreaker ‘Amundsen’ to the North Pole Area (April 24 - May 8, 2008).

See my weblog: in Dutch or in English

Eureka!-award 2003 for the 2002-editorial board of Natuur & Techniek, for the best media achievement in the field of the public understanding of science in the Netherlands. I was part of the board at that time.

‘Friend of Poland’-award 2003 for two articles: a travel article about Krakow in the ANWB-monthly travel magazine Reizen (july/august 2002) and a biology-article on the primeval forest Bialowieza in the east of Poland, for the scientific monthly Natuur & Techniek (march 2003). The international contest for journalists was organised by Radio Polonia and the Polish Organisation for Tourism in Warsaw.

Quotes

The world looks so different after learning science

Richard Feynman

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Richard Feynman

Wat is wetenschap? Wetenschap is de titanische poging van het menselijk intellect zich uit zijn kosmische isolement te verlossen door te begrijpen!

Professor Nummedal in de roman Nooit meer slapen van W.F. Hermans

We cook the facts. There are many different techniques for collecting, interpreting and analysing facts, and different techniques often lead to different conclusions, which is why scientists can disagree...When facts challenge our favoured conclusions, we scrutinize them more carefully and subject them to more rigourous analysis.

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert in Stumbling on happiness

The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.

Emily Dickinson

‘Who are YOU?’ said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I – I hardly know, sir, just at present – at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Want de ruimte en hij die er vrij doorheen trekt, die zijn de enige ware, dat is het leven, en alles wat op een plaats is versteend en langzaam tot stof vergaat, is dood van den beginne af aan.

J. Slauerhoff

Don't see the world as a market, but rather a place that people live in - you are designing for people, not machines.

Red Burns

Van alle dingen die de mensheid zich sinds haar ontstaan eigen heeft gemaakt, is wetenschap verreweg de meest succesvolle en productieve.

Michio Kaku