This proposal outlines the need to utilize information science and technology in resolving increasing difficulties associated with individual and group decision-making and consensus-building, and presents research and development (R&D) challenges that must be addressed. The target of this proposal is the "implementation of a better mechanism that enables individuals and groups to make their decisions based on their own initiative and consent by utilizing information science and technology in this complex society."

"Decision-making" refers to the behavior of an individual or group to select one option out of multiple possible alternatives to attain a given objective. While values of the individual provide the foundation for the selection process, decision-making in a group setting is another story because the values of all concerned parties (members or stakeholders) do not necessarily coincide. When opinions on the alternatives of those concerned are divided, they seek to close the gap through a process called "consensus-building."

We make decisions every day in various situations of our lives. A mistake in decision-making in critical situations can deteriorate the conditions of the individual or group and endanger their continued existence or even survival. For instance, a mistake in business decision could lead to decline in corporate earnings and competitiveness. An oversight by a government in its policymaking and institutional design could result in stagnation in the nation's economy and lower standard of people's living. Also, the impact of inadequate judgement skills and lack of serious thinking in individual decision-making could spread beyond the individual experiencing higher risks in various aspects of their personal life to perhaps even influence the direction of society in the form of collective indiscretion (groupthink) in the formation of public opinion, voting and other areas.

The development of information science and technology has had significant influences on the above-mentioned increasing difficulty in decision-making. Essentially, decisions based on one's own initiative and consent should be borne out of serious thinking by each person and serious discussions in a group. It is through serious thinking and discussions that the best solution may be derived after examining the potential of various factors and influences, and respecting one's own values and diverse values of the group members. With the development of information science and technology, however, humans today are faced with a situation where they find it difficult to engage in serious thinking and discussions.

One cause behind this phenomenon is that information explosion and borderless development of society have led to the emergence of various factors and influences associated with decision-making, which have burgeoned in scale that transcends human thinking. Moreover, the need to speed up the decision-making process in an environment of intensifying competition has often created a situation where decisions must be made without having the time to give sufficient thought to the possibilities of various factors or influences.

As another cause that can be considered from a different angle, this situation has enabled individuals to manipulate information with malicious or provocative intent in ways that influence the decision-making of other individuals. As a matter of fact, fake news on social media and acts known as digital gerrymandering have become social problems, given their influence on the shaping of public opinion and election results.

Although issues involving decision-making and consensus-building are problems that have traditionally been addressed primarily in the humanities and social science domains, approaches based on information science and technology are essential to the resolution of the causes shown above. This proposal seeks to create a mechanism that supports and encourages individuals and groups to make decisions based on their initiative and consent by promoting R&D in information science and technology to resolve the causes that have made serious thinking and discussions difficult.

The R&D challenges that need to be tackled regarding the first cause mentioned above involve technology that investigates the vast potential that humans often fail to identify and finds an effective option among them at high speed. Examples include: the technology to present effective alternatives that consider the potential of various factors and influences beyond the limited scope of human thought in individual and group decision-making situations; and technology to indicate the options that serve as appropriate common ground among the immense combinations of conditions that could not possibly be conceived by humans in negotiation scenes among numerous concerned parties (consensus-building).

The R&D challenges that need to be tackled in relation to the second cause engage technology to circumvent manipulation of information with malicious or provocative intent, and technology that raises tolerance on such information manipulation. Examples include: the technology to identify and delete information with low reliability (such as fake news) as grounds for decision-making; theories that guarantee integrity and fairness of the consensus-building process among multiple concerned parties as well as voting situations; and the design of mechanisms that invalidate the behaviors that seek to obstruct the integrity and fairness.

Furthermore, as a basic R&D challenge common to all the above, importance should be placed on technology that supports decision-making and consensus-building in a situation where social values and values of different people that facilitate consensus-building among numerous concerned parties and collective decision-making exist side by side.

Recently, technological development to support or automate decision-making is being actively pursued in the field of artificial intelligence. Notably, the generation of solutions (alternatives) based on machine learning and optimization technology is being increasingly applied to business scenes. However, most such applications today seek to obtain alternatives (logicality- or rationality-based solutions) under conditions where only one evaluation function is given, or in other words, in situations characterized by shared values.

On the other hand, in situations where social values and values of different people exist side by side, humans have reached solutions not only through logicality/rationality but also by employing sympathy, wisdom and other aspects. The activities to respond to R&D challenges therefore need to adopt thinking and knowledge in other fields such as brain science, cognitive science, computational social science, psychology, economics, political science, law and ethics. In addition to deepening the pursuit of principles and phenomenon analysis of human decision-making, these findings will need to be fulfilled in the form of system implementation to enable their application to actual problems associated with decision-making and consensus-building.

In view of the recent global trends, the government is called on to launch urgent measures for promoting R&D of technology that supports individual and group decision-making. In other words, the undesirable usage of social media resulting in manipulation of public opinion and politics, among others, has become a social problem globally, which is certain to intensify if no step is taken. The strengthening of decision-making is the inevitable direction if we are to survive in this competitive environment. The nation could fall behind in international competition in many different areas such as industries, policies, R&D and national security if it simply assumed a wait-and-see attitude by observing how other countries would act. This is an urgent challenge with mounting risks for Japan, considering that public opinion in the U.S., a leading player in this field, is said to have been manipulated by Russia during the 2016 presidential elections.

R&D management in this area will need to be optimized for problem-solving type basic research, not for "seeds push" type. It is effective to emphasize cross-sectional efforts across humanities and sciences to integrate researchers' resources under a common problem awareness and vision and to enhance social receptivity and the effect of approaches and technologies by receiving feedback from society in short cycle.