2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2022

2023

2024

2025

The 62nd meeting of the Prague computer science seminar

Amy Greenwald

Solving Games Forwards and Backwards

Computing equilibria in games is a problem of great interest in both economics and computer science. We present a min-max formulation of this problem, in which the minimizer seeks an equilibrium solution for the game, while the maximizer seeks to find fault with the proposed solutions.

Annotation Lecturer Poster

2025
2024
2023
2022
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014

March 20, 2025

4:15pm

Auditorium E-107, FEL CTU
Karlovo nám. 13, Praha 2
Show on the map

Computing equilibria in games is a problem of great interest in both economics and computer science. We present a min-max formulation of this problem, in which the minimizer seeks an equilibrium solution for the game, while the maximizer seeks to find fault with the proposed solutions. We call this problem the “forward” problem. In the “backwards” problem, we are instead given an equilibrium and a parameterized game, and we are interested in inferring a game from that equilibrium: i.e., identifying the game parameters that induce the observed equilibrium.

We consider the backwards problem under weaker and weaker assumptions, ranging from inverse multiagent planning to inverse multiagent learning and beyond, for each of which we present min-max formulations. We apply our backwards method to Spanish electricity market time-series price data, and then push the inferred game forward to predict future prices.

Amy Greenwald

Amy Greenwald is Professor of Computer Science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Her research focuses on game-theoretic and economic interactions among computational agents with applications to automated bidding and negotiation in domains ranging from advertising auctions to supply chains. She is also active in promoting diversity in Computer Science, leading multiple initiatives at primary and secondary public schools.

Its program consists of a one-hour lecture followed by a discussion. The lecture is based on an (internationally) exceptional or remarkable achievement of the lecturer, presented in a way which is comprehensible and interesting to a broad computer science community. The lectures are in English.

The idea to organize this seminar emerged in discussions of the representatives of several research institutes on how to avoid the undesired fragmentation of the Czech computer science community.

The seminar is organized by the organizational committee consisting of Roman Barták (Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics), Jaroslav Hlinka (Czech Academy of Sciences, Computer Science Institute), Michal Chytil, Pavel Kordík (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Information Technologies), Michal Koucký (Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics), Jan Kybic (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering), Michal Pěchouček (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering), Jiří Sgall (Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics), Vojtěch Svátek (Prague University of Economics and Business, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics), Michal Šorel (Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Information Theory and Automation), Tomáš Werner (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering), and Filip Železný (CTU in Prague, Faculty of Electrical Engineering)