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Bayesian decision theory outlines a rigorous framework for making optimal decisions based on maximizing expected utility over a model posterior. However, practitioners often do not have access to the full posterior and resort to approximate…
The DeGroot model of naive social learning assumes that agents only communicate scalar opinions. In practice, agents communicate not only their opinions, but their confidence in such opinions. We propose a model that captures this aspect of…
We show that in delegation problems, a principal benefits from belief misalignment vis-\`a-vis an agent when the latter can flexibly acquire costly information. The agent optimally succumbs to confirmatory learning, leading him to favor the…
Recent advances in computing power and the potential to make more realistic assumptions due to increased flexibility have led to the increased prevalence of simulation models in economics. While models of this class, and particularly…
In revenue maximization of selling a digital product in a social network, the utility of an agent is often considered to have two parts: a private valuation, and linearly additive influences from other agents. We study the incomplete…
When banks choose similar investment strategies the financial system becomes vulnerable to common shocks. We model a simple financial system in which banks decide about their investment strategy based on a private belief about the state of…
Bayesian Belief Networks have been largely overlooked by Expert Systems practitioners on the grounds that they do not correspond to the human inference mechanism. In this paper, we introduce an explanation mechanism designed to generate…
Selective classification is a powerful tool for automated decision-making in high-risk scenarios, allowing classifiers to act only when confident and abstain when uncertainty is high. Given a target accuracy, our goal is to minimize…
We consider a small extent sensor network for event detection, in which nodes take samples periodically and then contend over a {\em random access network} to transmit their measurement packets to the fusion center. We consider two…
In recent years online social networks have become increasingly prominent in political campaigns and, concurrently, several countries have experienced shock election outcomes. This paper proposes a model that links these two phenomena. In…
Bayesian inference has many advantages in decision making of agents (e.g. robotics/simulative agent) over a regular data-driven black-box neural network: Data-efficiency, generalization, interpretability, and safety where these advantages…
We study the Bayesian model of opinion exchange of fully rational agents arranged on a network. In this model, the agents receive private signals that are indicative of an unkown state of the world. Then, they repeatedly announce the state…
People routinely infer the goals of others by observing their actions over time. Remarkably, we can do so even when those actions lead to failure, enabling us to assist others when we detect that they might not achieve their goals. How…
Artificial Neural Networks are connectionist systems that perform a given task by learning on examples without having prior knowledge about the task. This is done by finding an optimal point estimate for the weights in every node.…
Active inference, a corollary of the free energy principle, is a formal way of describing the behavior of certain kinds of random dynamical systems that have the appearance of sentience. In this chapter, we describe how active inference…
We study a dynamic model of Bayesian persuasion in sequential decision-making settings. An informed principal observes an external parameter of the world and advises an uninformed agent about actions to take over time. The agent takes…
A key challenge in Bayesian decentralized data fusion is the `rumor propagation' or `double counting' phenomenon, where previously sent data circulates back to its sender. It is often addressed by approximate methods like covariance…
One aspect of the algorithmic lens in theoretical computer science is a view on other scientific disciplines that focuses on satisfactory solutions that adhere to real-world constraints, as opposed to solutions that would be optimal…
We develop a sequence of models describing information transmission and decision dynamics for a network of individual agents subject to multiple sources of influence. Our general framework is set in the context of an impending natural…
This paper develops methods of distributed Bayesian hypothesis tests for fault detection and diagnosis that are based on belief propagation and optimization in graphical models. The main challenges in developing distributed statistical…