A browser extension that utilizes sentiment analysis to find and highlight constructive comments on various social media platforms that oppose the users worldview in order to encourage them to break out of the echo chambers the internet has allowed us to construct.
A Discussion on how to Subvert Our Aversion to Dissenting Opinions
A primary problem with the proposed platform as it's conceptualized now is that most people will be extremely unwilling to engage with views they disagree with. Even if we manage to employ toxicity filtering to some extent to make the experience more palatable, it's a deeply ingrained defense mechanism that will be difficult to work around. It would be beneficial then to begin a conversation revolving around how this might be approached.
As a starting point, we were thinking of using positive feedback and reward systems, similar to those employed by many mobile games and social media sites, in order to create a cycle positive feedback. A metric or score is usually a good place to start with this, and our current idea is to have that score be Viewpoint Variance. The idea behind this is that the greater the diversity of news sites you view and comments you read, the higher your score.
There are several technical challenges that would need to be addressed and capabilities that the app would need to have to make this work, but for this discussion we should keep it theoretical to start. This is probably the greatest challenge involved in the project as it's an attempt to subvert human nature, but if we can meet this challenge, it greatly opens up the potential for more widespread impact.
We would particularly love anyone with a background in behavioural psychology, reward systems or belief change to contribute, but this discussion has no prerequisites for posting. If you think you have an interesting idea or novel approach, or believe you can build on what we've already discussed, please comment.
A Discussion on how to Subvert Our Aversion to Dissenting Opinions
A primary problem with the proposed platform as it's conceptualized now is that most people will be extremely unwilling to engage with views they disagree with. Even if we manage to employ toxicity filtering to some extent to make the experience more palatable, it's a deeply ingrained defense mechanism that will be difficult to work around. It would be beneficial then to begin a conversation revolving around how this might be approached.
As a starting point, we were thinking of using positive feedback and reward systems, similar to those employed by many mobile games and social media sites, in order to create a cycle positive feedback. A metric or score is usually a good place to start with this, and our current idea is to have that score be Viewpoint Variance. The idea behind this is that the greater the diversity of news sites you view and comments you read, the higher your score.
There are several technical challenges that would need to be addressed and capabilities that the app would need to have to make this work, but for this discussion we should keep it theoretical to start. This is probably the greatest challenge involved in the project as it's an attempt to subvert human nature, but if we can meet this challenge, it greatly opens up the potential for more widespread impact.
We would particularly love anyone with a background in behavioural psychology, reward systems or belief change to contribute, but this discussion has no prerequisites for posting. If you think you have an interesting idea or novel approach, or believe you can build on what we've already discussed, please comment.