Can we all just agree, universally, that the internet is a garbage fire at this point? From celebrities to teachers to everyone else, you’re only one remark away from being swarmed by people who can’t handle that you disagree with their opinion on anything. Google, which has a vested interest in you being on the internet as much as possible, sees this as a problem, and has an AI that will hopefully fix it.
Called Perspective, the bot scans comments and rates them on a “toxicity scale.” Basically, the cruder and ruder a comment is, the more likely it is to be ranked as toxic. It’s not a political filter, mind you. The demo tool on their site gives you a slider to play with, and low-toxicity comments are simply polite disagreements over the subject in question. So people can still debate, they just can’t resort to insults when it’s patiently explained to them that they’re wrong and that the study they cited has been thoroughly debunked.
Jigsaw, the team behind Perspective, is fairly up front that the tool is a work in progress, and will likely always be one. After all, inviting somebody to remove their cranium from their alimentary canal is only polite until you figure out what they’re saying. But for sites with trolls, they finally have a more useful troll-hunting tool.
(Via Mashable)