Fancy letting a machine mediate your argument? It could be the latest application for AI as researchers reveal its uncanny knack for finding common ground in culture war clashes.
Scientists at Google’s DeepMind project designed what they call the Habermas Machine, a large language AI inspired by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action – the idea that common understanding fosters cooperation.
It works by taking differing written views on a contentious topic and coming up with a set of statements that are designed to keep everyone happy.
Researchers found that the machine’s musings were preferred 56% of the time compared to statements produced by human mediators. Participants also found the AI response to be more logical and informative.
Study co-author Prof Chris Summerfield, from the University of Oxford, said: “Helping people find agreement is a new frontier for AI. We didn’t know if it was going to be any good, but in the event, we found that it was not only as good as but better than humans trying to do the same job.”
Summerfield believes the process of interacting through the AI model helps overcome the drawbacks of traditional debating chambers such as public meetings and social media.
“People can venture these private beliefs,” he explained. “They’re not put in the position where they have to try and look clever, or feel like they have to win an argument irrespective of what they really think.
People can venture these private beliefs. They’re not put in the position where they have to try and look clever, or feel like they have to win an argument
“We were amazed at how articulate people were. They were sensible and moderate. I bet that what happens on Twitter/X, for example, is that the process lends itself to digital preening.”
Part of the model’s success, he says, lies in its determination to give special weight to dissenting opinion. Rather than siding with the majority, it allowed minority voices to feel heard.
He now feels the model could be used to assist policymaking, both as a tool for surveying public opinion, and as a means for finding middle ground.
“A lot of policymaking is about finding good compromises, right?” he says. “And you can only fit so many people around the table. If you want a very inclusive process, then you need lots of people to participate. I would love to see this tool used to give us all a better opinion of what people think about everything, which I think would probably – on balance – be a good thing.”
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