Artificial Intelligence is a part of our industry that often goes over the head of most people. Something that doesn’t is the challenge of keeping kids safe online, as cyber bullying continues to impact our young people.
While we need to invest more in building resilience in our youth, being able to identify the activity when it’s happening (or even before) is the the big technology step we can make.
Hitachi may be a brand best known for storage, but a division of the company is now aiming at Social Innovation using Artificial Intelligence.
In a new project that is set to launch next month, the company has been working with Japanese schools to provide daily reports of suspected bullying to teachers so they can address things before they get out of hand.
The AI/ML will be used to analyse more than 9,000 bullying cases previously reported by elementary and junior high schools in Japan, over the past 6 years. The system will also ingest cases where bullying was only suspected, not confirmed.
The AI is being written to leverage what it knows about the users, that is, examine the grade and gender of the user, when the system identifies a potential victims. A comparison will then be made to that of the perpetrator(s) and any tends can be identified. It is important to understand context in which the bullying happens and understanding who the bullies are, is the first step in stopping it.
If the AI can at least do that, especially across different devices and services, then it has a chance at creating the right flags to the right people to take action and put a stop to it. Further more to put in place training for our kids as to what’s acceptable and what’s not, so it doesn’t continue to happen in the future.
Enough data is expected to be gathered by October to determine if the AI in it’s current state is effective in correctly diagnosing cyber bulling.
This issue is a global one, so I hope Hitachi release their work so that others can benefit from their efforts. In an ideal world, the companies who create popular communication platforms would come together with leading AI businesses and join forces to combat this behavior.
More information at Japan Times.
