The technology that complements presidential debates has been changing since the first official one in 1960. The advent of the media, television, and now social media has allowed for greater interactions and reactions from viewers, which is certainly a welcome addition. to a process that draws a scant 50% of eligible voters to the polls on Election Day. However, the record 10.3 million tweets shared during the first Obama-Romney debate suggests that even more people are watching, paying attention and caring about this important process.
Not surprisingly, much of the talk centers on the truth and lies shared by opposing parties. Because humans are fallible fact-checkers, it takes too long to determine the truth and usually doesn’t come to light until after the event, partisan comment. And we’ve all seen the consequences of real-time rogue fact checking. Which begs the question: with so many eyes and ears on the same event, how can we make sure the truth is easily known?
The debate boils down to three modes of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is how well someone presents themselves as knowledgeable, pathos is someone’s ability to connect with emotion, and logos is the appeal to logic through the use of facts and figures, which are not necessarily true. While ethos and logos are more delicate, logos are rooted in truth and must be held to a higher standard when presented in debate. Otherwise, we are relegated to a “he said she said” situation that gives credit to the best storyteller and not necessarily the best truth teller. We as a people deserve better.
There is technology around the world and at IBM that is now being developed that is aimed at solving that problem. Questions involving facts and semantics can now be broken down and understood by computers. Answers can be found leveraging the Internet and can be reported in a matter of seconds. This isn’t science fiction: IBM’s Watson computer put on an impressive demonstration of this technology by defeating Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings in 2011. When it comes to data mining and fact checking, computers do it better. I think it’s only a matter of time before this technology finds its way into the political realm.
So what exactly are we waiting for? Some of the current issues involved include deciphering the exact meaning of what was said and how to extract the facts from misleading statements in order to refute them. There is also a level of precision that must be achieved before debuting this technology, because a failure would be a huge setback. It may not be ready yet, but I predict that by 2020 this technology will be incorporated into presidential debates. After all, there is a great need and it would be a wonderful PR opportunity for the creator, IBM or others. Although many of the human elements of the debate will and must remain the same, the facts are the facts and should not be abused as persuasive means. You do not agree?
Now all we need are microphones that cut off when a candidate goes over their time and we’ll be good to go.