How artificial intelligence could negotiate better deals for humans

How artificial intelligence could negotiate better deals for humans

You may know the art of the deal, but there’s a science to it, too. And artificial intelligence is beginning to learn it. Computers that could negotiate for us could automate and optimize everything from traffic intersections to global treaties. Last month, at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Melbourne, Australia, a group of researchers presented a paper on the challenges and opportunities of such hagglebots. Science spoke with the paper’s lead author, Tim Baarslag, a computer scientist at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in Amsterdam. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.