{"id":180886,"date":"2017-03-02T13:50:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T18:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/war-on-comments-google-built-an-ai-to-censor-the-web-and-the-media-is-celebrating-breitbart-news\/"},"modified":"2017-03-02T13:50:11","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T18:50:11","slug":"war-on-comments-google-built-an-ai-to-censor-the-web-and-the-media-is-celebrating-breitbart-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/transhuman-news-blog\/censorship\/war-on-comments-google-built-an-ai-to-censor-the-web-and-the-media-is-celebrating-breitbart-news\/","title":{"rendered":"War on Comments: Google Built an AI To Censor The Web, And The Media Is Celebrating &#8211; Breitbart News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><p>      SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER    <\/p>\n<p>    Thats the lowkey Orwellian message that greets visitors to the    website of    Perspective, Googles new AI system for detecting (and    potentially deleting, hiding, or burying) toxic comments on    the web.  <\/p>\n<p>      SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER    <\/p>\n<p>    Perspective is still in early days of development, but in the    future, you may have to adjust your speech in order to satisfy    the lofty standards of Google. Otherwise, the companys    faceless AI might just have to improve you. Wheres Sarah    Connor when you need her?  <\/p>\n<p>    The good news is that, for now at least,     Perspective is about as effective as C-3PO with a lisp.    Software engineer and columnist David Auerbach has found the    program     woefully inept at sorting toxic comments from ordinary    ones. Because the AI currently focuses on words rather than    meanings, inoffensive comments like, Rape is a horrible    crime, or, few Muslims are a terrorist threat, were assigned    toxicity ratings of over 75 percent.  <\/p>\n<p>    Of course, even if Perspective could successfully sort toxic    comments from innocuous ones, that doesnt necessarily mean    theyre going to be deleted or buried. According to the projects    homepage, the systemperforms no function other than    detection.  <\/p>\n<p>    But statements from the projects developers make it clear that    censorship is the end goal. Indeed, the system seems to have    been developed to augment the lefts ongoing     war on comments sections.The software was initially    made available just to organizations that are part of Googles    Digital News Initiative, including the BBC, The Financial    Times, andThe    Guardian,whichpromptly    began testing the software to moderate their comments    sections.  <\/p>\n<p>    News organizations want to encourage engagement and discussion    around their content, but find that sorting through millions of    comments to find those that are trolling or abusive takes a lot    of money, labour and time,     says Jared Cohen, president of Jigsaw, the Google social    incubator that built the tool. As a result, many sites    have shut down comments altogether. But they tell us that isnt    the solution they want.  <\/p>\n<p>    Google couldnt be clearer: its a censorship bot. And just    because its currently limited to news sites and comments    sections doesnt mean it wont be rolled out to social networks    and the rest of the web. Twitter,     which just introduced yet another system to punish users    whohurt celebrities feelings,would probably    love to get their hands on a working version of Perspective.  <\/p>\n<p>    Twitter already has a tremendous depth of data on its users,    including gender, location, and personal interests. Imagine    that data, combined with an AI tool designed to pinpoint    inconvenient content,     in the hands of a CEO who has done little to conceal his    political biases.  <\/p>\n<p>    The idea of an all-powerful Google robot watching over us all,    making sure our speech is improved, has greatly excited    mainstream media. Google, says the BBC,    is going to make talk less toxic.     According to WIRED, Perspective will put a stop to abusive    comments that silence vulnerable voices.     New York magazine portrays Perspsective as a friendly    a robot, a kind of Clippy for the comments    section.Our robot overlords are certainly getting a warm    welcome  <\/p>\n<p>    The left are likely to be disappointed though. If Auerbachs    early research on Perspective is any guide, the system is    designed to filter out impoliteness, not political    disagreement. Googles censorbot might turn the comments    section  and perhaps the web  into a grey, sanitized dystopia    scrubbed of strong emotions and trollish humor, but it wont    get rid of facts.  <\/p>\n<p>    In other words, myths about gender wage gaps, police racism,    and moderate Islam are still going to get debunked. Even    Skynet cant keep some things quiet.  <\/p>\n<p>    You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitterandadd him on    Facebook.Email tips and suggestions to <a href=\"mailto:abokhari@breitbart.com\">abokhari@breitbart.com<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p><!-- Auto Generated --><\/p>\n<p>See the rest here:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2017\/03\/01\/google-build-censor-net-leftists-celebrating\/\" title=\"War on Comments: Google Built an AI To Censor The Web, And The Media Is Celebrating - Breitbart News\">War on Comments: Google Built an AI To Censor The Web, And The Media Is Celebrating - Breitbart News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER Thats the lowkey Orwellian message that greets visitors to the website of Perspective, Googles new AI system for detecting (and potentially deleting, hiding, or burying) toxic comments on the web. SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER Perspective is still in early days of development, but in the future, you may have to adjust your speech in order to satisfy the lofty standards of Google. Otherwise, the companys faceless AI might just have to improve you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/transhuman-news-blog\/censorship\/war-on-comments-google-built-an-ai-to-censor-the-web-and-the-media-is-celebrating-breitbart-news\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censorship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/prometheism-transhumanism-posthumanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}