Computational Social Choice: Prospects and Challenges 1

How should we aggregate the individual views of the members of a group so as to arrive at an adequate representation of the collective view of that group? This is a fundamental question of deep philosophical, economic, and political significance that, around the middle of 20th century, has given rise to the field of Social Choice Theory. More recently, a research trend known as Computational Social Choice has emerged, which studies this question from the perspective of Computer Science. This “computational turn” is fuelled both by the fact that questions of social choice have turned out to be central to a range of application areas, notably in the domain of Information and Communication Technologies, and by the insight that many concepts and techniques originating in Computer Science can be used to solve (or provide a new angle on) problems in Social Choice Theory. In this paper, I give a brief introduction to Computational Social Choice and discuss some of the prospects and challenges for this fast growing area of research.