Collective debate
Name
1126790108-MIT.pdf
Size
14.06 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
599d7722624fa6f8b4a21a25332146a7
Author(s)
Yuan, An,S.M.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Advisor(s)
Deb Roy.
Date Issued
2018
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Participating in online debate can expose people to diverse viewpoints, and thereby reduce polarization of opinion over controversial issues. However a lot of online debate is hostile and further dividing -we need tools that facilitate meaningful back and forth discussion. For my thesis work I created such a tool in the form of an artificial agent that engages users in debate over controversial issues. By engaging in debates with many users, the agent will start to gain insight into things like: what kinds of arguments do people find persuasive? Or, what can we predict about a person's argumentative behavior from their moral sense? Or, what is the characteristic debate path for someone who becomes persuaded to change his mind completely? The agent will then use what it has learned to help users on either side of an issue better understand each other by exposing them to compelling arguments from both sides. To identify these arguments, the agent develops a model of the user that predicts which arguments the user will like. I measure the agent's performance given different models of the user. I then evaluate the performance of each model against the random agent, which does not attempt to model the user.
Description
Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2018
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 101-102).
Subjects
Program in Media Arts and Sciences
MIT Department
Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Terms of Use
MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.
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