Simon Wells

Biography

Research interests: Simon is a computer scientist with interests in Artificial Intelligence who works at the nexus of Argumentative Dialogue, Behaviour Change, and Interaction Design. His research is concerned with formal models of reasoning and communication that are based upon argumentation. He has developed theoretical and applied intelligent computational systems that support argumentation between heterogeneous groups of people and machines, and which have been deployed in pure science, educational, social and policy domains.

Career history: Simon began his career at the University of Dundee where he researched a thesis on inter-agent communication using argumentation whilst employed on the EPSRC-funded Information Exchange Project. After his doctoral research Simon stayed in the School of Computing at Dundee until 2011. During this time he lectured across the undergraduate Computer Science curriculum whilst helping establish the nascent Argumentation Research Group. In 2011, Simon joined the Open Microscopy Environment (OME) project and worked on joint research between OME and the Ninewells Hospital Health Informatics Centre. In 2012 Simon joined the School of Computing at the University of Aberdeen where he was on employed on a large EU-funded IP project called SUPERHUB. On SUPERHUB he researched the roles of persuasive technology and behaviour change mechanisms in sustainable transport systems. In 2014 Simon joined the school of computing at Edinburgh Napier as a lecturer.

Research Areas

Events

Date


25 results

Burdens of Proposing: On the Burden of Proof in Deliberation Dialogues

Journal Article
Godden, D., & Wells, S. (2022)
Burdens of Proposing: On the Burden of Proof in Deliberation Dialogues. Informal Logic, 42(1), 291-342. https://doi.org/10.22329/il.v42i1.7225
This paper considers the probative burdens of proposing action or policy options in deliberation dialogues. Do proposers bear a burden of proof? Building on pioneering work by...

Towards a Declarative Approach to Constructing Dialogue Games

Conference Proceeding
Snaith, M., & Wells, S. (2021)
Towards a Declarative Approach to Constructing Dialogue Games. In Proceedings of the 21st Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument (9-18
In this paper we sketch a new approach to the development of dialogue games that builds upon the knowledge gained from several decades of dialogue game research across a varie...

Design and Evaluation of Visualisation Techniques to Facilitate Argument Exploration

Journal Article
Khartabil, D., Collins, C., Wells, S., Bach, B., & Kennedy, J. (2021)
Design and Evaluation of Visualisation Techniques to Facilitate Argument Exploration. Computer Graphics Forum, 40(6), 447-465. https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.14389
This paper reports the design and comparison of three visualizations to represent the structure and content within arguments. Arguments are artefacts of reasoning widely used ...

The Open Argumentation PLatform (OAPL)

Book Chapter
Wells, S. (2020)
The Open Argumentation PLatform (OAPL). In H. Prakken, S. Bistarelli, F. Santini, & C. Taticchi (Eds.), Computational Models of Argument. IOS Press. https://doi.org/10.3233/FAIA200541
Abstract not available.

Trusting Intelligent Machines: Deepening Trust Within Socio-Technical Systems

Journal Article
Andras, P., Esterle, L., Guckert, M., Anh Han, T., Lewis, P. R., Milanovic, K., …Wells, S. (2018)
Trusting Intelligent Machines: Deepening Trust Within Socio-Technical Systems. IEEE technology & society magazine, 37(4), 76-83. https://doi.org/10.1109/MTS.2018.2876107
Intelligent machines have reached capabilities that go beyond a level that a human being can fully comprehend without sufficiently detailed understanding of the underlying mec...

Monkeypuzzle: Towards Next Generation, Free & Open-Source, Argument Analysis Tools

Presentation / Conference
Douglas, J. & Wells, S. (2017, June)
Monkeypuzzle: Towards Next Generation, Free & Open-Source, Argument Analysis Tools. Paper presented at The 17th International Workshop on Computation Models of Natural Argument (CMNA17), London, U.K
We introduce a new, free, open-source, web-based argument analysis tool called Monkeypuzzle. This is designed to provide both a foundation for creating and visualising reprodu...

Information Diffusion in Multi-Agent Communities

Conference Proceeding
Farrenkopf, T., Guckert, M., Urquhart, N., & Wells, S. (in press)
Information Diffusion in Multi-Agent Communities. In Conference Proceedings
Understanding the course of events when newly launched products penetrate a market, and how those products supersede existing dominant products, is crucial. Besides potential ...

Automatically Detecting Fallacies in System Safety Arguments

Conference Proceeding
Yuan, T., Manandhar, S., Kelly, T., & Wells, S. (2016)
Automatically Detecting Fallacies in System Safety Arguments. In Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems. , (47-59). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46218-9_4
Safety cases play a significant role in the development of safety-critical systems. The key components in a safety case are safety arguments, that are designated to demonstrat...

Ontology Based Business Simulations

Journal Article
Farrenkopf, T., Guckert, M., Urquhart, N., & Wells, S. (2016)
Ontology Based Business Simulations. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 19(4), https://doi.org/10.18564/jasss.3266
Within business games there is a need to provide realistic feedback for decisions made, if such business games are to continue to remain relevant in increasingly complex busin...

Combinatorial Dialogue Games in Strategic Argumentation

Book Chapter
Wells, S. (2016)
Combinatorial Dialogue Games in Strategic Argumentation. In Argumentation and Reasoned Action Volume 2 (1045-1063). College Publications
We introduce combinatorial dialogue games, an approach to strategizing within argumentative dialogue games where the moves played are interpreted as moves within an edge addit...

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