20TH ANNIVERSARY COLLOQUIUM SERIES
         Computer Science Department, Boston University

Speaker: Prof. Rohit Parikh
         City University of New York
         (Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center)

Title: Logic of Knowledge and Social Software

Date:  September 20, 2004
Time:  3pm
Place: SAR 102 (Sargent college, building 28 on 
  http://www.bu.edu/visit/maps/campus/21-32.html)

Abstract:

Social Software is the formal study of social procedures using techniques
from Logic of Programs, Logic of Knowledge and Game theory, especially
economic design.  Just as there is a theory of correctness and efficiency
of computer programs, there also needs to be a parallel theory of social
procedures which resemble the former in important ways.

Two issues which are important for social software but less crucial for
computer software are the exchange of (and occasional hiding of)
information, and the provision of incentives.  Concurrency theory does
address the first but the second has been more or less the province of game
theory.  But Game theory tends to study the area in rather simple terms
lacking the sophisticated tools of computer science like recursion and data
types.

We will describe some recent work in this area done by ourselves, and by
students and colleagues both from City University and elsewhere.

Brief biography:

All my degrees are from Harvard.  A.B. with highest honors in Physics and
A.M. and Ph.D. in Mathematics.  My official adviser was Burton Dreben, a
philosopher, but I worked closely with Hartley Rogers (MIT) and Georg
Kreisel (Stanford).  I was three times winner in the Putnam mathematical
competition and worked with Noam Chomsky on topics in formal language
theory unrelated to my dissertation.  My first course in Logic was taken
with Quine who also attended my wedding.

My first full job was at Stanford, but after returning to India I worked at
Bombay University and Panjab University, going from there to Bristol
University where Shepherdson had an active group in Logic.

My early topics of research have been, Recursion theory, Theory of Proofs,
and Non-standard Analysis.  The last was responsible for my contact with
Abraham Robinson who arranged for my re-entry to the US as immigrant.
After a few months at Caltech as Robinson and Luxemburg's guest, I came to
Boston University in 1967 and was there till 1982.  I then joined Brooklyn
College of CUNY as distinguished professor, also becoming a member of the
Mathematics program at CUNY Graduate center.  I am currently also a member
of Computer Science and Philosophy programs at the CUNY Graduate center and
have advised doctoral students in all three areas of Math, CS and
Philosophy.  Two NYU students with whom I have worked closely are Amy
Greenwald (now at Brown) and Laxmi Parida (now at IBM).  Former students
teach in Paris, Chennai, Haifa, Sao Paulo, plus several in the New York
area.  These include Samir Chopra who works in belief revision, Georgatos
who has worked in topologic and belief revision, and Gilbert Ndjatou who
works in knowledge and agents.  One former BU student now works for the
world bank!

My recent research has concentrated on Dynamic Logic (influence of Albert
Meyer and Vaughan Pratt at MIT; Pratt has since moved to Stanford) till
about 1984.  Since then I have worked in Reasoning about Knowledge, Belief
revision, some work on game theory and deontic Logic, and most recently on
Social Software.

     See: http://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/cis/parikh/
and
     http://www.cs.gc.cuny.edu/~kgb/

The "KGB" group was formed by myself and Eric Pacuit who is a current
doctoral student of mine (he will be on the market in fall 2005).  Other
students working with me include Samer Salame who works on Majority Logic
and Chris Steinsvold, whose main interest is in Belief and topology.