Optimizing Social Impact: Field Deployments, Bandit Algorithms, and the Role of LLM Agents

For nearly two decades, my team’s work on AI for Social Impact (AI4SI) has focused on optimizing limited resources in critical areas like public health, conservation, and public safety. In this talk, I will highlight field test results from our deployed work in India, demonstrating measurable improvements in effectiveness for the world’s two largest mobile health programs for maternal and child care. We have leveraged innovative restless and collaborative bandit algorithms to achieve these gains, revealing new technical directions in the process. Additionally, I will present our ongoing research on network-based HIV testing in South Africa, which is modeled as a branching bandit problem. These projects, along with our other health-related projects in Africa, illustrate a core challenge in our field. Deploying end-to-end AI4SI systems requires us to repeat three labor intensive steps: understanding stakeholder challenges, building tailored models, and rigorous field testing. I’ll share initial results on how we can leverage current LLM-based agents and multiagents to accelerate this AI4SI process, significantly improving the speed and scale of social impact applications that focus on resource optimization.

Milind Tambe is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science; concurrently, he is also Principal Scientist at Google Deepmind.  Prof. Tambe and his team have developed pioneering AI systems that deliver real-world impact in public health (e.g., maternal and child health), public safety, and wildlife conservation. He is recipient of the AAAI  Award for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity,    AAAI Feigenbaum Prize,   IJCAI John McCarthy Award,    AAAI Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture Award, AAMAS ACM Autonomous Agents Research Award,  INFORMS  Wagner prize for excellence in Operations Research practice, Military Operations Research Society Rist Prize,  Columbus Fellowship Foundation Homeland security award and commendations and certificates of appreciation from the US Coast Guard, the Federal Air Marshals Service and airport police at the city of Los Angeles.  He is a fellow of AAAI and ACM.