Framework for Computational Persuasion

说服是一方试图说服另一方相信某事或做某事的活动。它是一个重要的、多方面的人类设施。显然，销售和营销在很大程度上依赖于说服。但许多其他活动也涉及劝说，比如医生劝说患者少喝酒，道路安全专家劝说司机开车时不要发短信，或者在线安全专家劝说社交媒体网站的用户不要在网上透露太多个人信息。随着计算涉及到生活的各个领域，说服也成为应用基于计算机的解决方案的目标。目前许多用于行为改变的说服技术(例如，用于鼓励更健康的生活方式)都基于从用户那里获取信息的问卷调查、提供指导用户更好的行为的信息、使用户能够探索与其行为有关的不同场景的计算机游戏、提供让用户记录正在进行的行为的日记、以及提醒用户继续更好的行为的消息。有趣的是，争论并不是说服技术当前表现的核心。良好行为的论点似乎要么是在用户使用说服技术之前假定的(例如，当使用日记或接收电子邮件提醒时)，要么是在说服技术中隐含地提供论点(例如，通过提供信息，或通过玩游戏)。因此，现有的说服技术不支持对论点和反驳的明确考虑。然而，在现实世界的说服中，尤其是在行为改变等应用中，提出令人信服的论点，并对用户的论点提出反驳，是至关重要的。例如，医生要说服病人少喝酒，就必须给出充分的论据，说明为什么病人少喝酒更好，以及这是如何实现的。在这个项目中，我们打算将论证引入新一代说服技术。自动说服系统(APS)是一种可以与用户(被说服者)进行对话以说服被说服者做(或不做)某一行为或相信(或不相信)某事的系统。要做到这一点，APS的目标是使用令人信服的论点来说服被说服者。对话可能涉及一些动作，包括询问、主张，以及重要的是，根据某种协议提出的论点。对话可能是不对称的，因为AP可以提出的动作类型可能不同于被劝说者可能做出的动作。例如，被劝导者可能被限制为只能通过从菜单中选择论点来提出论点(以便消除对输入的论点进行自然语言处理的需要)。在极端情况下，可能只有AP才能采取行动。一个论点是否有说服力，取决于被说服者的背景和特点。APS维护着被说服者的模型，APS的策略利用这一模型来选择对话中的好动作。计算说服是研究APSS中涉及论点和反论点的对话的形式模型、用户模型和策略的科学。这个项目的总体目标是开发一个用于计算说服的正式框架。这一框架将扩展论证计算模型的最新发展。重点将放在APSS上，它将帮助用户改变行为(例如，说服用户减少饮酒，或不在开车时发短信)。

Persuasion is an activity that involves one party trying to induce another party to believe something or to do something. It is an important and multifaceted human facility. Obviously, sales and marketing is heavily dependent on persuasion. But many other activities involve persuasion such as a doctor persuading a patient to drink less alcohol, a road safety expert persuading drivers to not text while driving, or an online safety expert persuading users of social media sites to not reveal too much personal information online. As computing becomes involved in every sphere of life, so too is persuasion a target for applying computer-based solutions.Many of the current persuasion technologies for behaviour change (e.g. for encouraging healthier life styles) are based on some combination of questionnaires for finding out information from users, provision of information for directing the users to better behaviour, computer games to enable users to explore different scenario concerning their behaviour, provision of diaries for getting users to record ongoing behaviour, and messages to remind the user to continue with the better behaviour.Interestingly, argumentation is not central to the current manifestations of persuasion technologies. The arguments for good behaviour seem either to be assumed before the user accesses the persuasion technology (e.g. when using diaries, or receiving email reminders), or arguments are provided implicitly in the persuasion technology (e.g. through provision of information, or through game playing). So explicit consideration of arguments and counterarguments are not supported with existing persuasion technologies. Yet in real-world persuasion, in particular in applications such as behaviour change, presenting convincing arguments, and presenting counterarguments to the user's arguments, is critically important. For example, for a doctor to persuade a patient to drink less alcohol, the doctor has to give good arguments why it is better for the patient to drink less, and for how it is possible. In this project, we intend to bring argumentation into a new generation of persuasion technologies. An automated persuasion system (APS) is a system that can engage in a dialogue with a user (the persuadee) in order to persuade the persuadee to do (or not do) some action or to believe (or not believe) something. To do this, an APS aims to use convincing arguments in order to persuade the persuadee. The dialogue may involve moves including queries, claims, and importantly, arguments that are presented according to some protocol. The dialogue may be asymmetric since the kinds of moves that the APS can present may be different to the moves that the persuadee may make. For instance, the persuadee might be restricted to only making arguments by selecting them from a menu (in order to obviate the need for natural language processing of arguments being entered). In the extreme, it may be that only the APS can make moves. Whether an argument is convincing depends on the context and on the characteristics of the persuadee. An APS maintains a model of the persuadee, and this is harnessed by the strategy of the APS in order to choose good moves to make in the dialogue.Computational persuasion is the study of formal models of dialogues involving arguments andcounterarguments, of user models, and strategies, for APSs. The overall goal of this project is to develop a formal framework for computational persuasion. This framework will extend recent developments in computational models of argument. The emphasis will be on APSs that will help users in changing behaviour (e.g. to persuade the user to drink less, or to not text while driving).