[Abstract-wikipedia] Re: Generating Natural-language Stories using Wikidata Historical Data

Hi Adam! This is a really interesting set of questions; for me, these are the most important discussions to have around Abstract Wikipedia. I'll clarify whether I'm answering from the perspective of what the team's currently doing or my own personal views and desires. First, there's a natural tension between the AW project and the notion of neutral POV. Abstract Wikipedia is an intrinsically pluralistic project, amplifying a given linguistic community's ability to represent their point of view. Neutral POV is intrinsically hegemonic, as "neutrality" is decided (even if implicitly) by the relative loudness of voices, and so usually comes down to what's said in a small number of languages with many, or highly privileged, speakers. Without a means of controlling and varying the subjectivities of output WMF perspective: presumably, all information in any Wiki project is conveyed from a neutral point of view. This policy is what's usually invoked to combat misinformation, say when a corporate entity or political group brigades a given Wiki and makes highly biased edits. I am thinking about whether resultant machine-generated stories would be a while ago, which I'd be happy to share with you. There are real differences of perspective in many domains. Some obvious differences concerned contested territories, actively occupied territories, etc. Others had to do with historical events and political philosophies; some highlights would be the English Wikipedia article on "Communism" and its Spanish equivalent, or a comparison between the Arabic Wikipedia's article on the crusades and that in English or French. What would be really interesting here (speaking for myself) would be to augment these articles. Arguably, the most "objective" thing one can do would be to represent diversity (while trying to avoid misinformation ... somehow ;) ). So what would it look like if Wikipedia articles told history from multiple perspectives, and Abstract Wikipedia allowed us to gather those multiple perspectives and add them to the articles in multiple Wikis? What do you think about the idea that natural-language story generating Continuing from the above, and still speaking for myself: it would be interesting to adopt primitives from epistemic logic in Wikidata. So Wikidata could represent not just a fact, but the perspective from which that fact is true. This would require a real organized effort (or a really good polyglot data-mining ML), but it's a way that Abstract Wikipedia could maintain "neutrality" while also admitting some level of subjectivity. And again, there are a ton of dangers here, like legitimizing misinformed (or downright malicious) perspectives. Maybe we then need a "truth score," like in neutrostrophic logic <http://fs.unm.edu/IntrodNeutLogic.pdf>? I don't know. Concretely, I think that something in this area would be a great vertical to focus on as a pilot for Abstract Wikipedia! What do you think about providing the capability for developers to be able This is part of why Abstract Wikipedia avoids machine learning. As presently conceived, every step of the NLG process can be inspected. We don't yet package this "debugging data" up nicely; however, it would absolutely be possible to do so, and might have applications to prevent abuse--presumably, if somebody misuses Abstract Wikipedia to produce fake news, this metadata could provide signal to automate detection and remediation. I'm not an expert on that, though; the disinformation folks at the WMF would know more. Happy to chat further! Best, Cory On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 6:04 AM Adam Sobieski &lt;adamsobieski(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: > Abstract Wikipedia, > > > > Hello. I am recently thinking about the generation of natural-language > stories from Wikidata data, e.g., graphs of interrelated real-world > historical events. > > I am thinking about whether resultant machine-generated stories would be > objectively or subjectively narrated. These topics appear to pertain to the > philosophy of history [1] and neutrality [2], resembling encyclopedists' > ideals of neutrality with respect to point of view [3]. > > In my opinion, there would be much to learn from developing > natural-language story generating systems which could have parameters set > or which could receive secondary input data to subsequently produce > subjective stories. With such systems, developers could control and vary > the subjectivities of resultant natural-language output, e.g., as > pertaining to sentiment. > > What do you think about the idea that natural-language story generating > Without a means of controlling and varying the subjectivities of output > What do you think about providing the capability for developers to be able > > > > > Best regards, > > Adam Sobieski > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_history > > [2] > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_history#Philosophy_of_neutrality > > > [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view > > _______________________________________________ > Abstract-Wikipedia mailing list -- abstract-wikipedia(a)lists.wikimedia.org > List information: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/abstract-wikipedia.lists.wikime… >