Reasons and Options for Updating an Opponent Model in Persuasion Dialogues

Dialogical argumentation allows agents to interact by constructing and evaluating arguments through a dialogue. Numerous proposals have been made for protocols for dialogical argumentation, and recently there is interest in developing better strategies for agents to improve their own outcomes from the interaction by using an opponent model to guide their strategic choices. However, there is a lack of clear formal reasons for why or how such a model might be useful, or how it can be maintained. In this paper, we consider a simple type of persuasion dialogue, investigate options for using and updating an opponent model, and identify conditions under which such use of a model is beneficial.