An Agent that Facilitates Crowd Discussion

Takayuki Ito (), Rafik Hadfi and Shota Suzuki
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Takayuki Ito: Kyoto University
Rafik Hadfi: Kyoto University
Shota Suzuki: Nagoya Institute of Technology

Group Decision and Negotiation, 2022, vol. 31, issue 3, No 5, 647 pages

Abstract: Abstract Online discussion platforms are perceived as the next-generation method of citizen involvement. Such platforms can collect, integrate, and synthesize opinions to achieve social good. Crowd-scale platforms are being developed and deployed in social experiments that involve citizens and local governments. In such platforms, human facilitation is often used to preserve the quality of the discussions. Human facilitators often face difficulties when the discussions grow in size. In this paper, we present “D-agree,” a crowd-scale discussion support system based on an automated facilitation agent. The agent extracts discussion structures from online discussions, analyzes them, and posts facilitation messages. We conducted small- and large-scale social experiments in Japan to assess the social impact of the platform. The results showcase the success of our automated facilitation agents in gathering valuable opinions from citizens. In addition, our experiments highlight the effect of an automated facilitation agent on online discussions. In particular, we find that combining the agent facilitator with human facilitators leads to higher user satisfaction.

Keywords: Crowd discussion support; Automated facilitation agent; Crowd decision support; Collective intelligence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10726-021-09765-8

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