Opinion Dynamics Models

On the show today, Dino Carpentras, a post-doctoral researcher at the Computational Social Science group at ETH Zürich joins us to discuss how opinion dynamics models are built and validated. He explained how quantifying opinions is complex, and strategies to develop robust models for measuring and predicting public opinions.

Guest

Dino Carpentras: I’m a researcher in social complexity. I am currently a senior scientist at the Computational Social Science group at ETH, Zürich and a previous Marie Curie Fellow. My research revolves around opinions and collective intelligence using cutting-edge methodologies that combine different disciplines. Usually, I rely on approaches and tools like agent-based modelling, belief networks, psychometrics and item-response theory. Some of my main research outputs have been on connecting opinion dynamics models to empirical data (to validate them) and developing a new methodology to study opinions as a system.