6 papers
Scarcity and Predictive Uncertainty: Implications for Societal Resource Allocation
Shafkat Farabi, Patrick J. Fowler, Sanmay Das
An emerging literature examines the critical question of when and how prediction can be useful in allocating scarce societal resources. We examine a novel variant of this question:…
Can LLMs Rank? A Tale of Triads and Triage
Gaurab Pokharel, Shafkat Farabi, Patrick J. Fowler +1
From housing allocation for households experiencing homelessness to triage in emergency departments, LLMs are increasingly being considered as judges of consequential decisions tha…
Budgeting Discretion: Theory and Evidence on Street-Level Decision-Making
Gaurab Pokharel, Sanmay Das, Patrick J. Fowler
Street-level bureaucrats, such as caseworkers and border guards routinely face the dilemma of whether to follow rigid policy or exercise discretion based on professional judgement.…
Street-Level AI: Are Large Language Models Ready for Real-World Judgments?
Gaurab Pokharel, Shafkat Farabi, Patrick J. Fowler +1
A surge of recent work explores the ethical and societal implications of large-scale AI models that make "moral" judgments. Much of this literature focuses either on alignment with…
Who Pays the RENT? Implications of Spatial Inequality for Prediction-Based Allocation Policies
Tasfia Mashiat, Patrick J. Fowler, Sanmay Das
AI-powered scarce resource allocation policies rely on predictions to target either specific individuals (e.g., high-risk) or settings (e.g., neighborhoods). Recent research on ind…
Active Geospatial Search for Efficient Tenant Eviction Outreach
Anindya Sarkar, Alex DiChristofano, Sanmay Das +3
Tenant evictions threaten housing stability and are a major concern for many cities. An open question concerns whether data-driven methods enhance outreach programs that target at-…