Artificial intelligence could help reduce some of the most contentious culture war divisions through a mediation process, researchers claim.
Experts say a system that can create group statements that reflect majority and minority views could help people find common ground.
Prof Chris Summerfield, a co-author of the research from the University of Oxford who also works for Google DeepMindsaid that the AI tool can have multiple purposes.
“What I would like to see it used for is to give political leaders in the UK a better sense of what people in the UK really think,” he said, noting that surveys provided only limited insights, while forums known as citizens meetings are often expensive, logistically challenging and limited in size.
Writing in the journal Science, Summerfield and colleagues from Google DeepMind report how they built the “Habermas Machine” – an AI system named after the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas.
The system works by taking written views of individuals within a group and using them to generate a set of group statements designed to be acceptable to all. Group members can then rate these statements, a process that not only trains the system, but allows the statement with the greatest endorsement to be selected.
Participants can also critique this initial cluster statement back into the Habermas machine to result in a second collection of AI-generated statements that can be reordered, and a final revised text selected.
The team used the system in a series of experiments involving a total of more than 5,000 participants in the UK, many of whom were recruited through an online platform.
In each experiment, the researchers asked participants to respond to topics ranging from the role of monkeys in medical research to religious instruction in public education.
In one experiment, involving about 75 groups of six participants, the researchers found that the initial group statement from the Habermas machine was preferred by participants 56% of the time over a group statement produced by human mediators. The AI-based efforts were also rated as higher quality, clearer and more informative among other attributes.
Another series of experiments found that the full two-step process with the Habermas machine increased the level of group agreement relative to participants’ initial views before the AI mediation began. Overall, the researchers found that agreement increased by an average of eight percentage points, equivalent to four people out of 100 changing their views on a topic where opinions were originally evenly split.
However, the researchers emphasize that it was not the case that participants always came off the fence, or changed their minds, to support the majority view.
The team found similar results when they used the Habermas machine in a virtual citizens’ meeting in which 200 participants, representing the British population, were asked to deliberate on questions related to topics ranging from Brexit to universal childcare.
The researchers say further analysis, which looks at the way the AI system represents the texts it is given numerically, sheds light on how it generates group statements.
“What [the Habermas Machine] seems to do is to broadly respect the view of the majority in each of our little groups, but to try to write some kind of text that doesn’t make the minority feel deeply disenfranchised – so it sort of acknowledges the minority point of view. Summerfield said.
However, the Habermas machine itself has proven controversial, with other researchers noting that the system does not help translate democratic deliberations into policy.
Dr Melanie Garson, an expert on conflict resolution at UCL, added that while she was a technology optimist, one concern was that some minorities might be too small to influence such group statements, yet could be disproportionately affected by the result.
She also noted that the Habermas machine does not offer participants the chance to explain their feelings, thus developing empathy with those of a different view.
Fundamentally, she said, when using technology, context is key.
“[For example] how much value does it deliver in the perception that mediation is more than just finding agreement?” Waiter said. “Sometimes, if it’s in the context of an ongoing relationship, it’s about teaching behavior.”
