Polymath scholar Sendhil Mullainathan ’93, a behavioral economist who has combined computational and social sciences to produce pioneering work on health care, poverty and the criminal justice system, will deliver three public lectures at Cornell Nov. 11-13 for the Messenger Lectures series.

Mullainathan will discuss creating artificial intelligence to complement rather than replace human intelligence. His first lecture, “Tools of Thought: Building Algorithms that Enhance Human Capacity,” will take place Nov. 11 at 3:45 p.m in Baker Lab, Room 200.

“Computing will have the biggest positive impact on society not from algorithms doing what we already do cheaper or in silico, but from doing things that humans cannot even dream of,” Mullainathan said, in describing the talk. “In effect, we want thought partners, not substitutes. Building such algorithms requires that we integrate our knowledge of people with our knowledge of computing.”

For the second lecture, “Incorporating Behavioral Science into Computational Science,” Mullainathan will discuss working an understanding of human behavior into algorithmic systems and the metrics for evaluating them. The lecture, co-sponsored by the Computer Science Colloquium and the Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE) Colloquium, will be held Nov. 12 at 11:45 a.m. in Gates Hall, Room G01.

 The third lecture, “Incorporating Algorithms into Economics and Policy Description,” will consider the outsized impact algorithms can have on public policy and economics. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Law, Economics and Policy Seminar and will be held Nov. 13 at 1:30 p.m. in the ILR Conference Center, Room 423, in King-Shaw Hall.

Mullainathan is the Peter de Florez Professor in electrical engineering and computer science and in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded a MacArthur fellowship, commonly known as the “genius” award, and was designated a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He co-founded ideas42, a nonprofit to apply behavioral science, and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a center to promote the use of randomized control trials in development. He co-authored the book “Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much” (2013) with psychologist Eldar Shafir.

As a writer and speaker, Mullainathan is known for engaging popular and academic audiences across disciplines. 

“By using computational tools to distill high-complexity, societal-level phenomena, Sendhil has contributed to innovative research methods across multiple disciplines. He speaks as if he’s absorbed the ethos of the humanities and social sciences, economics and data science, while weaving them all together,” said David Shmoys, director of the Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society and the Laibe/Acheson Professor of Business Management and Leadership Studies in Cornell Engineering’s School of Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE).

The Messenger and University lectures, visiting lectureships sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Faculty, are the highest recognition of scholarship awarded by Cornell. Mullainathan’s visit is co-sponsored by the Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society.

Details for attending the lectures remotely via Zoom are available at the Cornell events calendar.

J. Edward Anthony is a writer for Cornell Research and Innovation.