Related papers: Conversational flow in Oxford-style debates
How can we approach the truth in a society? It may depend on various factors. In this paper, using a well-established truth seeking model, we show that the persistent free information flow will bring us to the truth. Here the free…
Liquid democracy is a decision-making paradigm in which each agent can either vote directly for some alternative or (transitively) delegate its vote to another agent. To mitigate the issue of delegation cycles or the concentration of power,…
We test the robustness of debate as a method of scalable oversight by training models to debate with data generated via self-play. In a long-context reading comprehension task, we find that language model based evaluators answer questions…
Current news commenting systems are designed based on implicitly individualistic assumptions, where discussion is the result of a series of disconnected opinions. This often results in fragmented and polarized conversations that fail to…
We study the dynamics of public opinion in a model in which agents change their opinions as a result of random binary encounters if the opinion difference is below their individual thresholds that evolve over time. We ground these…
We study a stochastic model for the diffusion of competing opinions in a population composed of three types of agents: trend-followers, opposers, and indifferent individuals. The decision dynamics are driven by reinforcement mechanisms,…
We analyze the evolution of political organizations using a model in which agents change their opinions via two competing mechanisms. Two agents may interact and reach consensus, and additionally, individual agents may spontaneously change…
Most people participate in meetings almost every day, multiple times a day. The study of meetings is important, but also challenging, as it requires an understanding of social signals and complex interpersonal dynamics. Our aim this work is…
The election narrative is formed under the competitions of ideas among critical players involving politicians, news media, public influentials, and the general public. Untangling the complex process of narrative formation, however, is no…
This position paper offers a framework to think about how to better involve human influence in algorithmic decision-making of contentious public policy issues. Drawing from insights in communication literature, we introduce a…
Recently, social phenomena have received a lot of attention not only from social scientists, but also from physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists, in the emerging interdisciplinary field of complex system science. Opinion…
Opinion dynamics on social networks have been received considerable attentions in recent years. Nevertheless, just a few works have theoretically analyzed the condition in which a certain opinion can spread in the whole structured…
This paper examines the interplay of opinion exchange dynamics and communication network formation. An opinion formation procedure is introduced which is based on an abstract representation of opinions as $k$--dimensional bit--strings.…
Concurrent computations resemble conversations. In a conversation, participants direct utterances at others and, as the conversation evolves, exploit the known common context to advance the conversation. Similarly, collaborating software…
The combined effects of collective beliefs and individual stubbornness in the dynamic of a public debate are investigated using the Galam sequential probabilistic model of opinion dynamics. The study is focused on pair interactions for…
In this paper, we argue for the need to distinguish between task and dialogue initiatives, and present a model for tracking shifts in both types of initiatives in dialogue interactions. Our model predicts the initiative holders in the next…
The outcomes of democratic elections rest on individuals' decision-making that is driven by their varying preferences and beliefs. Individuals may prefer consensus to gridlock, or gridlock to consensus, and information may be fractured via…
In recent years, social media has increasingly become an important platform for political campaigns, especially elections. It remains elusive how exactly public discourse is driven by the intricate interplay between individual…
Town hall-type debates are increasingly moving online, irrevocably transforming public discourse. Yet, we know relatively little about crucial social dynamics that determine which arguments are more likely to be successful. This study…
Conversation between two people is usually of mixed-initiative, with control over the conversation being transferred from one person to another. We apply a set of rules for the transfer of control to 4 sets of dialogues consisting of a…