{"id":311370,"date":"2019-02-10T07:41:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T12:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/uncategorized\/a-japanese-city-is-using-ai-to-prevent-youth-suicides.php"},"modified":"2019-02-10T07:41:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T12:41:47","slug":"a-japanese-city-is-using-ai-to-prevent-youth-suicides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/futurism\/a-japanese-city-is-using-ai-to-prevent-youth-suicides.php","title":{"rendered":"A Japanese City Is Using AI to Prevent Youth Suicides"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p><div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-assets.futurism.com\/2019\/02\/school-bullying-artificial-intelligence1-300x158.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"A school in Japan is using an artificial intelligence to stop school bullying before it escalates to the point of seriousness.\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/div><h2>Too Much<\/h2><p>In 2011,&nbsp;a 13-year-old student in Otsu, Japan, jumped to his death following weeks of intense bullying from other students. His teacher had&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/japantoday.com\/category\/national\/parents-of-suicide-bullying-victim-settle-out-of-court-with-otsu-city\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reportedly<\/a>&nbsp;brushed off the abuse as a joke, and the school denied that bullying was the direct cause of the suicide until a survey of his fellow students made the connection clear.<\/p><p>The case shone a spotlight on bullying in Japanese schools&nbsp;&mdash; and soon after, the nation enacted laws requiring school boards to&nbsp;establish guidelines to prevent bullying.<\/p><p>Now Otsu&nbsp;has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/asia\/east-asia\/article\/2185475\/city-japan-uses-ai-technology-analyse-cases-school-bullying\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new plan<\/a> to prevent other bullied students from slipping through the cracks the way that 13-year-old boy did in 2011&nbsp;&mdash; and it all starts with artificial intelligence.<\/p><h2>Predicting Escalation<\/h2><p>On Friday, the Otsu school board announced its plan to use AI to predict how suspected cases of school&nbsp;bullying might evolve in the future.<\/p><p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2019\/02\/08\/national\/city-otsu-use-ai-analyze-past-school-bullying-cases-eye-future-prevention\/#.XF2YhM9KiV4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">story<\/a> in <em>The Japan Times<\/em>, the school will feed the&nbsp;AI information about 9,000 suspected bullying cases reported by Otsu&rsquo;s elementary and junior high schools between 2012 and 2018. This information will include details on the students involved&nbsp;&mdash; their ages, genders, absenteeism records, and academic achievements &mdash; as well as when and where any bullying incidents took place.<\/p><p>&ldquo;Through an AI theoretical analysis of past data, we will be able to properly respond to cases without just relying on teachers&rsquo; past experiences,&rdquo; Otsu Mayor Naomi Koshi said,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2019\/02\/08\/national\/city-otsu-use-ai-analyze-past-school-bullying-cases-eye-future-prevention\/#.XF2YhM9KiV4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to <em>The Japan Times<\/em>.<\/a><\/p><h2>Timely Intervention<\/h2><p>The hope is that the AI will allow school officials to identify the <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/the-byte\/vaping-detection-surveillance-bathrooms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bullying cases<\/a> that are likely to escalate in seriousness so that they can intervene and diffuse the situation before it&rsquo;s too late.<\/p><p>&ldquo;Bullying may start from low-level friction in relationships, but can get worse day by day,&rdquo; an Otsu education board official said,&nbsp;according to <em>The Japan Times<\/em>.&nbsp;&ldquo;It is important to know which cases have a tendency to become serious.&rdquo;<\/p><p>If AI is able to prevent even one student from reaching the same breaking point as that boy in 2011, this new initiative will be well worth the effort&nbsp;&mdash; and perhaps it&rsquo;ll even inspire other schools across the globe to create similar AI systems to protect their own students.<\/p><p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2019\/02\/08\/national\/city-otsu-use-ai-analyze-past-school-bullying-cases-eye-future-prevention\/#.XF2YhM9KiV4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">City of Otsu to Use AI to Analyze Past School Bullying Cases With an Eye on Future Prevention<\/a> [<em>The Japan Times<\/em>]<\/p><p><em><strong>More on school surveillance: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/the-byte\/vaping-detection-surveillance-bathrooms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Schools Are Installing Bathroom Surveillance Systems to Bust Vapers<\/a><\/em><\/p><p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/school-bullying-artificial-intelligence\/\">A Japanese City Is Using AI to Prevent Youth Suicides<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\">Futurism<\/a>.<\/p><p>See more here:<br><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/school-bullying-artificial-intelligence\/\" title=\"A Japanese City Is Using AI to Prevent Youth Suicides\">A Japanese City Is Using AI to Prevent Youth Suicides<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Too Much In 2011,\u00a0a 13-year-old student in Otsu, Japan, jumped to his death following weeks of intense bullying from other students. His teacher had\u00a0 reportedly \u00a0brushed off the abuse as a joke, and the school denied that bullying was the direct cause of the suicide until a survey of his fellow students made the connection clear. The case shone a spotlight on bullying in Japanese schools\u00a0\u2014 and soon after, the nation enacted laws requiring school boards to\u00a0establish guidelines to prevent bullying <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/futurism\/a-japanese-city-is-using-ai-to-prevent-youth-suicides.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}