While deliberate misinformation and deception are by no means new societal phenomena, the recent rise of fake news5 and information silos2 has become a growing international concern, with politicians, governments and media organizations regularly lamenting the issue. A remedy to this situation, we argue, could be found in using technology to empower people's ability to critically assess the quality of information, reasoning, and argumentation through technological means. Recent empirical findings suggest "false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it."10 Thus, instead of continuing to focus on ways of limiting the efficacy of bots, educating human users to better recognize fake news stories could prove more effective in mitigating the potentially devastating social impact misinformation poses. While technology certainly contributes to the distribution of fake news and similar attacks on reasonable decision-making and debate, we posit that technology--argument technology in particular--can equally be employed to counterbalance these deliberately misleading or outright false reports made to look like genuine news.

The ability to argue, to express our reasoning to others, is one of the defining features of what it is to be human. Processes of argumentation run our governments, structure scientific endeavour and frame religious belief. So should we worry that new advances in artificial intelligence are taking steps towards equipping computers with these skills? As technology reshapes our lives, we are all getting used to new ways of working and new ways of interacting. Millennials have known nothing else.

The ability to argue, to express our reasoning to others, is one of the defining features of what it is to be human. Processes of argumentation run our governments, structure scientific endeavour and frame religious belief. So should we worry that new advances in artificial intelligence are taking steps towards equipping computers with these skills? As technology reshapes our lives, we are all getting used to new ways of working and new ways of interacting. Millennials have known nothing else.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. The ability to argue, to express our reasoning to others, is one of the defining features of what it is to be human. Processes of argumentation run our governments, structure scientific endeavor and frame religious belief. So should we worry that new advances in artificial intelligence are taking steps towards equipping computers with these skills? As technology reshapes our lives, we are all getting used to new ways of working and new ways of interacting.

The Center for Argument Technology (ARG-tech) located at the University of Dundee now provides tools based on in-house artificial intelligence designed for arguments. While that may sound completely useless given humans do extremely well at arguing each other, this AI is meant to make those arguments more productive, so everyone involved can reach an agreement. According to ARG-tech director Chris Reed, his group first turned to the BBC's Moral Maze 10 years ago. They created large "maps" based on every debate that took place on the show, and turned those maps into infographics using an algorithm to "determine the most central themes." From that data, the team pulled important issues, where participants stood, the highest points in conflict, and more.

Humans are used to being outdone by computers when it comes to recalling facts, but they still have the upper hand in an argument. It has long been the case that machines can beat us in games of strategy like chess. And we have come to accept that artificial intelligence is best at analysing huge amounts of data - sifting through the supermarket receipts of millions of shoppers to work out who might be tempted by some vouchers for washing powder. But what if AI were able to handle the most human of tasks - navigating the minefield of subtle nuance, rhetoric and even emotions to take us on in an argument? It is a possibility that could help humans make better decisions and one which growing numbers of researchers are working on.

THE descent into a post-truth world continues at a depressing rate. The latest winner of the pants-on-fire award is former US presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. In an interview with CNN after a speech in which Donald Trump wrongly claimed that violent crime was rising, Gingrich cherry-picked the facts – then abandoned them altogether. "The average American does not think crime is down," he said. "As a political candidate, I'll go with what people feel."