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.
