Check Out Alphabet’s New Tool to Weed Out the ‘Toxic’ Abuse of Online Comments by Jeff John Roberts.
From the post:
A research team tied to Google unveiled a new tool on Thursday that could have a profound effect on how we talk to each other online. It’s called “Perspective,” and it provides a way for news websites and blogs to moderate online discussions with the help of artificial intelligence.
The researchers believe it could turn the tide against trolls on the Internet, and reestablish online comment forums—which many view as cesspools of hatred and stupidity—as a place for honest debate about current events.
The Perspective tool was hatched by artificial intelligence experts at Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Google-holding company Alphabet (GOOGL, -0.04%) that is devoted to policy and ideas. The significance of the tool, pictured below, is that it can decide if an online comment is “toxic” without the aid of human moderators. This means websites—many of which have given up on hosting comments altogether—could now have an affordable way to let their readers debate contentious topics of the day in a civil and respectful forum.
“Imagine trying to have a conversation with your friends about the news you read this morning, but every time you said something, someone shouted in your face, called you a nasty name or accused you of some awful crime,” Jigsaw founder and president Jared Cohen said in a blog post. “We think technology can help.”
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I’m intrigued by this, at least to the extent that AI assisted filtering is extended to users. Such that a user can determine what comments they do/don’t see.
I avoid all manner of nonsense on the Internet, in part by there being places I simply don’t go. Not worth the effort to filter all the trash.
But at the same time, I don’t prevent other people, who may have differing definitions of “trash,” from consuming as much of it as they desire.
It’s really sad that Twitter continues to ignore the market potential of filters in favor of its mad-cap pursuit of being an Internet censor.
I have even added Ed Ho, said to be the VP of Engineering at Twitter, to one or more of my tweets suggesting ways Twitter could make money on filters. No response, nada.
It’s either “not invented here,” or Twitter staff spend so much time basking in their own righteousness they can’t be bothered with communications from venal creatures. Hard to say.
Jeff reports this is a work in progress and you can see it from yourself: What if technology could help improve conversations online?.
Check out the code at: https://conversationai.github.io/.
Or even Request API Access! (There no separate link, try: http://www.perspectiveapi.com/.)
Perspective can help with your authoring in real time.
Try setting the sensitivity very low and write/edit until it finally objects. 😉
Especially for Fox news comments. I always leave some profanity or ill comment unsaid. Maybe Perspective can help with that.