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Facebook Rolls Out AI To Detect Suicidal Posts Before They're Reported (techcrunch.com)
Facebook is rolling out "proactive detection" artificial intelligence technology that will scan all posts on the site for patterns of suicidal thoughts, and when necessary send mental health resources to the user at risk or their friends, or contact local first-responders. The goal is to use AI to decrease how long it takes to send help to those in need. TechCrunch reports: Facebook previously tested using AI to detect troubling posts and more prominently surface suicide reporting options to friends in the U.S. Now Facebook is will scour all types of content around the world with this AI, except in the European Union, where General Data Protection Regulation privacy laws on profiling users based on sensitive information complicate the use of this tech. Facebook also will use AI to prioritize particularly risky or urgent user reports so they're more quickly addressed by moderators, and tools to instantly surface local language resources and first-responder contact info. It's also dedicating more moderators to suicide prevention, training them to deal with the cases 24/7, and now has 80 local partners like Save.org, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Forefront from which to provide resources to at-risk users and their networks.
How long before this is trolled into oblivion?
How long before people sue Facebook for false positives and violating their privacy?
There are going to be some serious privacy issues and a lot of false positives. If all goes according to plan, expect the cops to send a SWAT team to bust down someone's door and "accidentally" pump two dozen bullets into them...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
They're just attempting to get ahead of things because they know damn well at some point someone is going to do some research and show how many suicides Facebook actually CAUSES. Legally, they can say they are taking all the reasonable measures possible to prevent it.
I was under the impression that people who are actually suicidal don't often post about it on Facebook. If you really want to kill yourself, bringing more attention to yourself isn't a good way to accomplish this. Don't get me wrong, the petty narcissists that try to get attention by acting suicidal clearly need help as well, but I don't think this will do much to deter those who are actually suicidal.
If Facebook really cared about the mental health and wellbeing of their users, they'd kick people off after more than fifteen minutes of daily use or just outright pull the plug on the whole works.