Technology and Artificial Intelligence based “Peaceful Expression of Opinion Voices”

Game playing has always fascinated men and women not just children. There are various kinds of games that had been played over the centuries that have passed since human evolution began. Even today stones are used to play games, a popular game with stone I myself played as a kid was called “pittooh” .  Not just the way we live have evolved by the way we play games have changed. In the tough current times, our kids must be missing playing outside in parks with their friends, but pandemic left us with no option. Kids all over must be getting play time at home or on parents’ tablets and if they are lucky on their phones too.  But yes the thing I propose in this article that can  be used for people’s voices to be heard is “peaceful expression of opinion voice” .  How can Technology, Computer Science (CS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) be used to help people express their peaceful voices and be heard and get responses too. This is one thing that can be enhanced with changing times—given the necessity—from both sides from the speaker (the one who wants to express his/her opinion)  and from the hearer (the one to which it is directed to be heard).  Times have changed, the way games are played have changed, shopping has changed, communication to friends have change and so on. So why not an advance in the fields of “peaceful expression of opinion voices? ”. As I said before I still played stone games and children do still play them when in garden but rubber balls have come now, new games have been invented, some do like an hour of video gaming too and not to forget wooden bats, soccer have come to—but majority people are watching them indoors these days—–as there is no option in many scenarios!  So, the point I want to focus here is – even if Tech & CS & AI based solutions come for “peaceful expression of voice” –it would not end the old things one used to do. So is there a  fear ?  It can be used in needful times-like these times and in needful areas where one must not gather——- !

In normal modern days, a lot depend on transport, roads, essential services. Question is can technology and advances in Computer Sciences, Artificial Intelligence change the way “peaceful expression of opinion voice” is made and heard.  And now in pandemic times – haven’t this become an important issue ? Given people gather to express a lot of important issues – be it a small banner meeting to a peaceful march on some opinion context. In such cases guidelines imposed in  Corona are not followed. This also result in disruption of an already burdened system. The system is burdened by plethora of works that go in handling pandemic and is not just restricted to the healthcare providers-which are front end workers. There are back end workers too in Pandemic which are not recognized and applauded. They are the government, administrative officials, manufacturers of medicines as well as of essential product which include food, transportation, water, electricity to mention a few. Ever thought of how all these things are working with following restrictions, day to day challenges—which are not new to system, but also of disruption of transport and law and order which occurs, when peaceful movements halts a road—may be an essential road to a needy person ? Ever thought of it. This is the aim of this article – to express how development and research in AI, CS, Tech can help online expression of opinionvoices.

Well, it is not just online expression of opinion voices. There are lot of social media channels that favor and accomplish this task. The aim as I said is there are two entities here, these are described below.

1. The Speaker— The one or group or units who want to express an opinion about some problem they are facing, or an expressing an excitement about a cricket match being won, to even celebration of a achievement being targeted—to a vigil and even a grief march in memory of a late be-loved leader. The entities here can be one, some or many depending on what and who all want to participate in this task.

• The Hearer— This is an individual living or not to whom the opinion voice is meant for. This may be a late leader—to whom a group of people want to grieve, or nobody—in case one want celebration of a match won by a state, it may be a leadership unit—may be a labor group of a company wants to express their concerns to even a climate change meeting by a group of people-to be heard by the stakeholders. So, the hearer can be one or some ( few in number) or many (exceeding a specified number say 50) and may even change—both increase and decrease with time.

Typically, the size of Speaking group is higher than the size of hearing group—who are decision makers in most of the cases. The kind of entities may be classified as:

1. One: When only one entity is needed
2. Some: When few people are stakeholders
3. Many: When a particular group of people are participating
4. Huge: When a big segment of population of a area participates

Further, the communication can be classified in following categories:

1. One way from Hearer to Speaker: The hearer is typically a stakeholder in our model of solution to this problem using CS and AI. The stakeholder or stakeholders may like to ask a speakers for an opinion in a forced fashion. This type may be referred to as an opinion seeker communication or a response based communication.
2. One way from Speaker to Hearer: This may be used when a group of speakers wants to express their thoughts to hearer. The voice may be spontaneous or response to response based voice as in point (i) above. Spontaneous voice typically may not require any opinion seeker and may generate out of a collective though a group have.
3. Both ways communications: Here there is a constant communication from speaker and hearer. And both sides want to hear each others opinions and also take into account each others feedback.

While the participants in each of the three above cases can be:

1. One to one: One entity on speaker side to one on hearer side
2. One to Many: One entity on speaker versus many on  hearer
3. Many to One: Many speakers and one hearer
4. Many to Many: Many speakers and many hearer

Given that typically such opinions are expressed by a group who thinks in a similar way on a particular topic. Now, this article questions and present a solution to this issue, given we have high end technologies to implement the solution. The proposed solution is based on the concept I illustrated in the beginning –game playing. Online game playing has been advanced to its peak both in technology used but also in use of Artificial Intelligence. I propose use of computer science and technology which can be implemented to enable participants from both side—speaker and hearer and from all models of one to one or one to many or many to many entities.  

The entities on each side can hold the following objects

1. Voise
2. Text Banners
3. Images
4. Paintings, picture handmade depictions, uploaded
5. Their names and identities

A Platform can be made where the participant can do the following.

1. peaceful march on the roads selected by them—-all virtually
2. they can post their main opinions on banners that they are holding online
3. they can speak something at any time in which they are participating in the march
4. the collective voise of the speakers can be accumulated and using Artificial Intelligence
5. the main strong voices and opinion mining can be done in the online framework being developed
6. the banners are text messages—which can be used in the Natural Language Processing Engine of the platform and the key targets can be extracted and send to stakeholder hearers
7. image, paintings can be put on online banners in possession of the entities
8. the stakeholders /speakers/external entities can reply back to speakers
9. Artificial Intelligence can be applied on the hearer-decision makers and collective information and decision can be framed out before commination back to the other group.

With the advances in gaming technologies, virtual reality, augmented reality the march, celebration movement, or even a road annual party can be made virtual.

The stakeholders may take decision based on Artificial Intelligence tools and decision based on either:

a. majority votes of stakeholders

b. majority votes + user voices

c. majority votes of speakers

More on this in coming blogs.