Accessing Validity of Argumentation of Agents of the Internet of Everything

Abstract Agents of the Internet of Everything (IoE) exchange messages, make certain decisions, and provide arguments for them. In this IoE environment validation of the validity of argumentation patterns in messages, as well as their truthfulness, authenticity, and consistency, is essential. We formulate a problem of domain-independent assessment of argumentation validity based on rhetorical analysis of text. Argumentation structure is discovered in the form of discourse trees extended with edge labels for communicative actions. Extracted argumentation structure is represented as a defeasible logic program and is subject to dialectical analysis to establish the validity of the arguments for the main claim being communicated. We evaluate the accuracy of each step of this argumentation processing pipeline as well as its overall performance.