通过容忍度感知推荐与自适应多样化逆转极化
Reversing Polarization through Tolerance-Aware Recommendation and Adaptive Diversification
Zhanzhan Zhao, Shuqi Zhao, Zichen Fan, Dana Randall
AI 速览：该研究基于意见动力学模型与LLM智能体模拟，探讨容忍度感知推荐结合自适应多样化能否在已极化人群中逆转而非仅减缓极化。
Recommender systems face a tension between broadening exposure to diverse viewpoints and avoiding interactions that reinforce extreme positions. This tension is especially consequential in already polarized populations. Here we investigate whether recommendation strategies can reverse polarization rather than merely slow its development. Building on the Attraction--Repulsion Model of opinion dynamics, we introduce two complementary design principles: Tolerance-aware recommendation, which seeks to learn each individual's tolerance for disagreement and reduces exposure to viewpoints beyond that tolerance, and adaptive diversification, which broadens exposure for agents with more extreme opinions while retaining stronger personalization for moderates. Agent-based experiments show that highly personalized recommendations intensify polarization under polarized initial conditions. Tolerance awareness alone primarily slows polarization, whereas combining it with adaptive diversification can reduce polarization below its initial level and, under suitable conditions, restore consensus. Additional experiments incorporating persistent extreme influencers and a spiral-of-silence mechanism show that the combined strategy can mitigate polarization under social pressure and selective participation. To examine whether these findings extend beyond predefined opinion-update rules, we repeat the experiments on a simulated social platform populated by 100 LLM-driven agents prompted to move toward opinions similar to their own and away from those that differ substantially. Across three runs, the combined strategy is again the only recommendation policy tested that reverses polarization in every run. These findings distinguish polarization prevention from reversal and identify tolerance-aware, adaptive exposure as a promising recommendation design principle for reconnecting divided populations.