At CES IBM unveiledProject Debater – Speech by Crowd, a new and experimental cloud-based AI platform for crowdsourcing decision support. Speech by Crowd uses the core AI behind Project Debater to collect free-text arguments from large audiences on debatable topics and automatically construct persuasive viewpoints to support or contest the topic.
For example, read below the speech automatically prepared by this AI system for the Topic “Social media brings more harm than good”.
Supporting
Greetings everyone. The speech you are about to hear is made of arguments supporting the motion Social media brings more harm than good, that were made by the global IBM team. There are three issues I would like to address. They explain why social media brings more harm than good. I will start by explaining why social media is a source of fake news. I will also explain that social media is counterproductive against people privacy. And I will elaborate on how social media can be addictive. Let’s explore the issue of fake news. Social media merely acted like a catalyst to false news, rumors and influenced political and financial gains for few. It has driven people to an unrealistic fantasy to make believe and propel against by trolls. Social media is largely used to spread false information or half truths and thus presents a huge risk to democratic societies. The major harm with social media is that sometimes people use it for their own benefit by spreading fake news and misguiding others. Social Media has the same effect as a 24 hour news cycle. It’s an overkill of information that effects people’s mindsets on various views. Social media is often misused as a channel to spread rumors and falsehoods and such news can spread in an uncontrolled manner. It is a source of fake news. It do not allow accountability of who is disseminating fake news.
https://ces.debater-event.us-south.containers.appdomain.cloud/event/a3e08f33-5db4-4b76-b286-a7082687deaa
Turning to privacy. Social media is counterproductive against people privacy as it promotes the sharing of information without providing data handling transparency. It does more harm than good because it creates a sense of anonymity among users and because the platforms are politicized for personal agendas. It exposes personal information to many entities that can and will use it in a harmful way.
The third point is addiction. Though social media brings people closer, it is causing too much of anxiety, noise and unwanted information overload, ultimately negating and over-weighing the positive effects it brings. Addiction to social media can lead to severe psychological and social repercussions.
Contesting
Hello everyone. The speech you are about to hear is made of arguments disagreeing with the motion Social media brings more harm than good, that were made by the IBM team from all over the world. There are three issues I would like to address. They explain why social media does not bring more harm than good. I will demonstrate how social media can help small brands and artists grow their businesses. I will also explain that social media allows families to remain connected whilst separated. And I will elaborate on how social media can be very comforting for the individual by strengthening social interactions. Starting with business. It may be none of my business, but a few comments about it. Social media do allow people to re-connect valuable relationships both in personal life and in business. They can help small brands and artists grow their businesses by connecting them to those interested in their products. For business promotions, it is a better and cost effective platform.
Secondly, a few words about family. Social media is powerful and helpful as it is really a global platform to build family, friendly relations, nations, communities, careers and innovation. It is a good way of keeping track and up today with the happenings of friends, family, and colleagues over time. It allows for convenient and less expensive cross border communication between separated families encouraging more closeness over distance. Social media, if we choose to use it judiciously, offers tremendous opportunity to engage with family, friends and community at large across the world and express our views in an unprecedented manner.
The last issue I mentioned was social relations. Social media can be very comforting for the individual by strengthening social interactions. It allows people with real life social interaction issues to approach and talk to people they wouldn’t usually have the courage to do by themselves. It allows people to keep in touch with many weak ties, and thus increases their social capital. Social media has opened up a different world and has brought economic, social and cultural benefits to the world. Openness and transparency have increased as a result of social media.
