Lessons from Texas, COVID-19, and the 737 Max: Effeciency vs Resiliance

In both computer science and economics, efficiency is a cherished property. The field of algorithms is almost solely focused on their efficiency. The goal of AI research is to increase efficiency by reducing human labor. In economics, the main advantage of the free market is that it promises “economic efficiency.” A major lesson from many recent disasters is that both fields have overemphasized efficiency and underemphasized resilience. In this lecture, Moshe Y. Vardi argues that resilience is a more important property than efficiency and discusses how these fields can broaden their focus to make resilience a primary consideration.

Speaker: Moshe Y. Vardi, Rice University