Topological Complexity, Robotics and Social Choice

Abstract

Topological complexity is a number that measures how hard it is to plan motions (for robots, say) in terms of a particular space associated to the kind of motion to be planned. This is a burgeoning subject within the wider area of Applied Algebraic Topology. Surprisingly, the same mathematics gives insight into the question of creating social choice functions, which may be viewed as algorithms for making decisions by artificial intelligences.