Digitalisation is rapidly transforming our societies, transforming the dynamics of our interactions, transforming the culture of our debates. Trust plays a critical role in establishing intellectual humility and interpersonal civility in argumentation and discourse: without it, credibility is doomed, reputation is endangered, cooperation is compromised. The major threats associated with digitalisation – hate speech and fake news – are violations of the basic condition for trusting and being trustworthy which are key for constructive, reasonable and responsible communication as well as for the collaborative and ethical organisation of societies. These behaviours eventually lead to polarisation, when users repeatedly attack each other in highly emotional terms, focusing on what divides people, not what unites them.

Focusing on two timely domains of interest – gender equality and public health – iTRUST will deliver (i) the largest ever dataset of online text, annotated with features relevant for ethos, pathos and reframing; (ii) a new methodology of large-scale comparative trust analytics to detect implicit patterns and trends in hate speech and fake news; (iii) a novel empirical account of how these patterns affect polarisation in online communication and in society at large; and (iv) AI-based applications that will transfer these insights into interventions against hate speech, fake news and polarisation. Given the relevance for the knowledge-based society, the project puts great emphasis on outreach activities and users’ awareness in collaboration with media, museums and other partners.

The consortium consists of five experienced PIs with expertise in rhetoric, comparative political science, corpus linguistics, natural language processing, multi-agent systems and computational argumentation. The group is complemented by senior experts (ACP and KEP) in fields that provide valuable extensions, such as media studies and AI-based technologies. Our long-term ambition is to establish a pan-European network and foundations for trustworthy AI in response to the EC priority of “Europe fit for the Digital Age”.

• The project funded by “Foundations for Misbehaviour Detection and Mitigation Strategies in Online Social Networks and Media” (OSNEM) program of CHIST-ERA (Future and Emerging Information and Communication Technologies)
• iTRUST is worth €945k of which €250k comes to Warsaw University of Technology (€250,000; 1,110,000 PLN)
• Team @WUT: PI: Katarzyna Budzynska; Co-Investigators: Marcin Koszowy, Barbara Konat, tba; PhD student: tba; Research Assistants: tba
• iTRUST consortium: Lead PI: Katarzyna Budzynska; Co-PIs: Marie-Francine Moens, KU Leuven (BE); Andrea Rocci, Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano) (CH); Carles Sierra, Artificial Intelligence Research Institute IIIA (ES); Virginie Van Ingelgom, UCLouvain (BE)
• 11.2022-10.2025 Warsaw University of Technology (WUT)

Rephrasing speakers’ words is a powerful persuasive instrument in an argumentative discourse. The goal of AMoRe is to provide an argumentative model of rephrase by delivering: an annotation scheme and guidelines allowing to map dialogical arguments with rephrase structures; publicly available corpora of annotated rephrase types and structures; an inventory of propositional, stylistic, illocutionary and dialogical patterns associated with the use of rephrase; a methodological protocol allowing the systematic combination of linguistic and cognitive evidence which grounds our novel pragma-rhetorical account; and a fully-fledged pragma-rhetorical model of rephrase which integrates all aspects investigated in this project.

• The project funded by the OPUS-LAP program of the Polish National Science Center (NCN) and Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
• AMoRe is worth €700k of which €165k comes to Warsaw University of Technology (€165,000; 753,000 PLN)
• Team @WUT: Lead PI: Marcin Koszowy; Co-Investigators:  Katarzyna Budzynska, Barbara Konat; PhD student: tba
• AMoRe consortium: Marcin Koszowy and Katarzyna Budzynska, philosophy of argumentation, rhetoric and corpus linguistics, Warsaw University of Technology (PL; Lead), Barbara Konat, computational linguistics, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (PL), Steve Oswald and Pascal Gygax, pragmatics and psychology, University of Fribourg (CH)
• AMoRe International Advisory Board: Isabela Fairclough, discourse analysis,  University of Central Lancashire (UK); Jean Goodwin, communication, North Carolina State University (US); Benno Stein, artificial intelligence, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (DE); Christopher Tindale, argumentation theory, University of Windsor (CA)
• 01.2022-12.2025 Warsaw University of Technology (WUT)

Far from a Europe-wide sphere of “public reason”, social media such as Twitter or comments on news sites suggest a growing crisis: especially when it comes to matters of identity, users repeatedly attack each other in highly emotional terms, with no sensitivity to differences across cultures, focusing on what divides people, not what unites them. With the DeLab, the project aims at an AI intervention system with which constructive, sensible and responsible communication in social media can succeed across cultural borders.

• The project funded by the “Artificial Intelligence – Its Effects on Tomorrow’s Society” of the German VW foundation (VolkswagenStiftung)
• DeLab is worth €1.5m of which over €200k comes to Warsaw University of Technology (€202,000; 920,000 PLN)
•  Team @WUT: Principal Investigator: Katarzyna Budzynska; Research Assistants: Ewelina Gajewska (2022), Konrad Kiljan (2022), Marie-Amelie Paquin (2022), Maciej Uberna (2022-23), Yana Sviatsilnikava (2022-23); Post-doctoral Researcher: Rory Duthie (2021-22)
• DeLab consortium: Katarzyna Budzynska, ethical responsible AI, Warsaw University of Technology (PL), Valentin Gold (coordinator), experimental social science, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (DE), Annette Hautli-Janisz, empirical linguistics, University of Konstanz (DE), John Parkinson, political science, Maastricht University (NL), Chris Reed, argument technology, University of Dundee (UK)
  DeLab partners: André Bächtiger, Universität Stuttgart (DE), Manfred Stede, Universität Potsdam (DE), Benno Stein, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (DE)
• 04.2021-03.2025 Warsaw University of Technology (WUT)

Conflict is one of the engines of society: whether in political democratic processes, corporate decision making or discussions with friends, conflict is a driving force, powerful and vital. Using processes of argumentation and reasoning, it leads us from controversy to consensus in all fields of public discourse, allowing us to uncover assumptions and misassumptions, expunge solipsism, and refine understanding. The aim of this project is to develop an insight into conflict, and in particular how conflict evolves over time.

• The project funded in the “Cybersecurity and Data Science (CyberiADa-2)” research priority of the Polish Ministry’s Excellence Initiative – Research University Programme at Warsaw University of Technology (171,000 PLN; €37,000)
• Principal investigator: Katarzyna Budzynska, investigators: Ewelina Gajewska (2022), Konrad Kiljan (2022), Rory Duthie (2021-22), Olena Yaskorska-Shah (2021)
• International partners: Annette Hautli-Janisz, University of Konstanz (DE), Chris Reed, University of Dundee (UK)
• 01.2021-12.2022 Warsaw University of Technology (WUT)

NL4XAI will train 11 creative, entrepreneurial and innovative early-stage researchers (ESRs), who will face the challenge of making AI self-explanatory and thus contributing to translate knowledge into products and services for economic and social benefit, with the support of Explainable AI (XAI) systems. At the Warsaw University of Technology, we are focusing on studying “Customized interactive argumentation schemes for XAI”. This involves defining, designing, developing and validating a new methodology for argumentation schemes tailored for planning and handling the discourse history in interactive conversational agents aimed at explaining AI in NL. The customisation will be achieved through the creation of a profile of the user and then adaptation of argumentation to match this profile.

• The project funded by the European Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN) under Horizon 2020.
• NL4XAI is worth just over €2.8m of which €227k comes to Warsaw University of Technology (€227,000; 1,033,000 PLN)
• Project coordinator at Santiago de Compostela U: Jose M. Alonso;  lead at WUT: Katarzyna Budzynska; PhD student at WUT (ESR8): He Zhang (2022-23), Martijn Demollin (2020-21); PA at WUT: Agnieszka Strojna (2022-23)
• Beneficiaries in the NL4XAI consortium: University of Santiago de Compostela (ES, Coordinator), University of Aberdeen (UK), Agencia Estatal del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES), Technische University of Delft (NL), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Università ta’ Malta (MA), Universiteit Utrecht (NL), Indra Soluciones Tecnologías de la Información SL (SP), Universiteit Twente (NL), Warsaw University of Technology (PL)
  Partner organisations in the NL4XAI consortium: University of Lorraine (FR), Arria NLG Limited (UK), Centre for Argument Technology, University of Dundee (UK), Wizenoze (NL), Orange (FR), Accenture (ES), Info Support (NL), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ES)
  
• 09.2020-09.2023 Warsaw University of Technology (WUT)

• The project funded by the Polish National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR)
• Leader: Swarmcheck sp. z o.o. (PL)
• Experts: Katarzyna Budzynska and Marcin Koszowy, Warsaw University of Technology; and Mariusz Urbański, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań; Andrzej Kisielewicz, University of Wrocław
• 12.2021 – 05.2025

• The project funded by the SONATA 16 program of the Polish National Science Centre (NCN)
• PI: Barbara Konat, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (PL)
• Advisors: Katarzyna Budzynska and Marcin Koszowy, Warsaw University of Technology (PL); and Annette Hautli-Janisz, University of Konstanz (DE); Steve Oswald, University of Fribourg (CH); Chris Reed, University of Dundee (UK)
• 10.2021 – 09.2023

• The project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
• Consortium: Andrea Rocci and Carlo Raimondo, USI, Lugano U (CH, Coordinator); Chris Reed, Dundee U (UK)
• Advisory board: Katarzyna Budzynska, Warsaw University of Technology (PL); and Rudi Palmieri, Liverpool U (UK)
• 09.2021 – 08.2025