Prototyping a Method for Resolving Opinion Bias toward Facilitating Sublation of Conflict in Web-based Discussion

Abstract

The term "Sublation" or "Aufheben" refers to the process of arriving at a developed answer to two opposing arguments without denying either of them. The sublation is important for building consensus that can be accepted by everyone in public debates. In this study, we quantified the the degree of sublation and conducted a discussion experiment and analyzed the results in order to investigate the factors necessary for the cessation of conflicting opinions in discussions. As a result, a weak positive correlation was found between the number of URLs posted as evidence for one's opinion and the cessation of opposition to a consensus proposal. The number of URLs posted as the basis of one's opinion during a discussion was weakly positively correlated with the cessation of opposing views. However, in actual discussions and debates, there are times when everyone has similar arguments and there are few or no opposing arguments. In such a situation, it can be said that there is a bias of opinions in the discussion, and it is difficult to stop the discussion. To address this proble, we prototyped a method to eliminate bias in opinions, in which a bot posts information that reinforces the opinion of a minority in a discussion.