turning social disputes into knowledge representations deri reading group 2012-03-28

Copyright 2011 Digital Enterprise Research Institute. All rights reserved.

Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie

Enabling Networked Knowledge

Turning social disputes into knowledge representations

Jodi Schneider

DERI Reading Group, Galway, Ireland Wednesday 28th March 2012



What can we learn from opinions and social media discussions?


Enabling Networked Knowledge3

Toni and Torroni. Bottom-up Argumentation. In: First International Workshop on the Theory and Applications of Formal Argumentation 2011 (TAFA), 16-22 July, 2011, Barcelona, Spain. http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ft/PAPERS/tafaPT.pdf

Benn, Buckingham Shum, Domingue, and Mancini. Ontological Foundations for Scholarly Debate Mapping Technology. In: 2nd International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA '08), 28-30 May, 2008, Toulouse, France. http://oro.open.ac.uk/11939/

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ft/PAPERS/tafaPT.pdf

http://oro.open.ac.uk/11939/



From a Facebook thread to logic



Typical discussion



Can we make sense of it?



Discussion features

Purpose and specific focus are not clear.

Can extract and recognize arguments. Arguments emerge, bottom-up.



Parts of the discussion

Comment Opinion Links relationships between Comments & Opinions

Comment “This is what my kitchen tap used to look like…”

Opinion “Separate taps are common in GB”

Links “This is what my kitchen tap used to look like…”

supports “Separate taps are common in GB”



Mapping the conversation



objectsTo link

Links “Separate taps are inconvenient because they freeze/ burn hands”

objectsTo “Separate taps are not inconvenient as basin solves temperature problem”



Logical framework

Assumption-Based Argumentation basedOn(o3) ← c2, l_3_2

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Logical framework

Assumption-Based Argumentation alink(l_4_17,o4,o17)

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Mapping a debate based on its Wikipedia article



Extracting scholars’ opinions from Wikipedia



Reference Ontology



Aligning/Specialising

Agent Person Organisation

Information Object Publication

Description PropositionalContent NonPropositionalContent



Debate representation

Issues Propositions Arguments



Debate elements

Issue Is aborting a zygote, embryo, or fetus a violation of human

rights? Proposition

The existence and moral right to life of human organisms begins at or near conception

Argument All or almost all abortion should be illegal



Issue



Proposition & Argument



Cognitive Coherence Relations

Additive/Causal Positive/Negative Semantic/Pragmatic Basic/Non-Basic




Additive/Causal Weak correlation Strong correlation

Positive/Negative Pos: “Because he had political experience, he was elected

president” Neg: “He did not have any political experience, yet he was

elected” Semantic/Pragmatic

Factual content Speech Act – (“Are you warm?” implies “Can I open the

window?”) Basic/Non-Basic

Presentation order




“Because he had political experience, he was elected president.” Causal Positive Semantic Basic order

“He did not have any political experience, yet he was elected president” Additive Negative Non-basic order



Inference Rules

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Enabling Networked Knowledge29



Relationship to my work



What can we do with it?

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“ELIZA for arguments”

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Snaith, Lawrence, & Reed, “Mixed initiative argument in public deliberation,” ODET 2010



Highlight Controversies

Ennals, R., Trushkowsky, B., & Agosta, J. M. (2010). Highlighting Disputed Claims on the Web. In WICOW at WWW 2010.



Transform Debates into

Argument Frameworks(1) Households should pay tax for

their garbage.

(4) (1) Paying tax for garbage increases recycling, so households should pay.

(3) (1)Recycling more is good, so people

should pay tax for their garbage.

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Arrow: premise

Wyner, van Engers, & Bahreini. From Policy-making Statements to First-order Logic. EGOV 2010



Calculate best options (non-contradictory opinions)

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Wyner, van Engers, & Bahreini. From Policy-making Statements to First-order Logic.

EGOV 2010



How do we make one?

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Frozen Planet Episode

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to our collaborators! Katie Atkinson, Trevor Bench-Capon, Adam Wyner

(Liverpool) DERI Social Software Unit Rhetorical Structure Taskforce, W3C Health Care/Life

Sciences

Funding Science Foundation Ireland Grant No. SFI/08/CE/I1380 (Líon-

2) Short-term scientific mission (STSM 1868) from the COST

Action ICO801 on Agreement Technologies Upcoming: SFI Travel Supplement

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Thanks!

[email protected]://jodischneider.com/jodi.html@jschneider

mailto:[email protected]

http://jodischneider.com/jodi.html