StreamingBandit: Developing Adaptive Persuasive Systems

Abstract

This paper introduces StreamingBandit, a (back-end) solution for developing adaptive and personalized persuasive systems. Creating successful persuasive applications requires a combination of design, social science, and technology. StreamingBandit contributes to the required technology by providing a platform that can be used to adapt persuasive technologies in real-time and at large scales. We first introduce the design philosophy of StreamingBandit using a running example and highlight how a large number of adaptive persuasive systems can be regarded as solutions to (contextual) multi-armed bandit problems: a type of problem that StreamingBandit was built to address. Subsequently, we detail several scenarios of the use of StreamingBandit to create adaptive persuasive systems and detail its future developments.