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Intro
Make your voice heard on ‘That’s Debatable’
Participate in a new debate show facilitated by natural language processing from Watson. Join the discussion by submitting a short argument for or against the position statement below. All of the arguments submitted will be analyzed by Watson to provide insight into the global public opinion.
Then tune in to “That’s Debatable,” presented by Bloomberg and Intelligence Squared, a debate fueled in part by your submission.
‘That’s Debatable’ on Bloomberg TV Show premieres on October 9, 2020
Active debate
A U.S.-China Space Race Is Good for Humanity
Nearly 70 years ago, the Space Race galvanized international support for scientific achievement and ushered in a new era of technological advancement. And since the historic Apollo 11 mission, the United States has maintained its status as the world’s leading nation in space. But now, China is ramping up its national space industry with huge investments in next-generation technologies that promise to transform military, economic, and political realities here on Earth. Against this backdrop, we ask: Would a new U.S.-China space race be good for humanity? Could a 21st-century great power competition drive innovation, rally public support for science and discovery, and launch humans into the next generation? Or would this competition catalyze an expensive global arms race, militarize space for decades to come, and destroy any hope of international peace and cohesion in the future.
Make your case
In 36 words or less, make your case in support of, or opposition to,
the topic below:
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Submission examples
Key point analysis
How it works
Watson uses the latest innovations in natural language processing, available in products like Watson Discovery, to identify the most significant key points and generate coherent narratives.
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For “That’s Debatable,” Watson analyzes every submitted argument to determine if the content is for or against the position statement. Watson also removes submissions deemed irrelevant, such as those that are off-topic, or those that are deemed neutral – neither supporting nor contesting the statement.
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Watson evaluates the quality of each submitted argument and identifies potential key points by grading and filtering high-quality arguments. It disregards potential key points that are too long, too emotional in tone, are incoherent or include redundancies. The arguments matched to each key point are sorted by the their argument quality and by the confidence in the matching.
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Watson now identifies how many arguments support each of the potential key points. It then selects a small set of key points that are diverse and cover the majority of arguments submitted.
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Finally, Watson selects the key points cited most often in the submissions. For each key point, a small subset of the strongest arguments that support that key point are selected. Those key points and arguments are then used to formulate coherent, salient narratives — one arguing the pro side of the debate, the other arguing the con side.
Episode 1: It’s time to redistribute the wealth
The data is in, interested in hearing the debate results?
Find answers and insights in your documents
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