Is Artificial Intelligence Making Humanity Better?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is in your everyday life, from organizing photos by dates and occasions to telling you what you want to post on Pinterest (since you’ve been hot on that home-improvement trail lately) to presenting your potential next pair of shoes on Zappos (based on your shopping history, of course). It’s certainly a helpful tool for consumers and marketers alike. But consumerism and marketing aside, artificial intelligence also has a growing responsibility, and that’s tackling problems and addressing some of the not-so-great aspects of human nature.

As AI gets smarter, and it certainly is in 2017 thanks to its intelligent human “teachers,” it’s making humanity better (well, or at least helping humankind navigate the digital world out there) in new and interesting ways. The following are a few ways artificial intelligence is stepping up to the do-gooder plate.

Putting the Kibosh on Harassment in Dating Apps

AI’s algorithm learns from examples. So, in the case of dating apps—which, unfortunately, can be hubs for online trolls and creepers—users may be allowed to flag any inappropriate members. The artificial intelligence then learns from repeated flags to shut out the offensive player, or at least alert someone at the company to review his or her profile. (Bye, Felipe!)

Moderating Users of Shopping Sites

These days, you can sell anything online. Hold up, wait a minute… But you’re not supposed to! The AI used on online auction sites is getting smarter about recognizing things some folks are trying to slide by the ethical police and putting up for sale, such as drugs, guns, exotic animals, you name it. Find out more about WebPurify’s hybrid human-AI approach to image moderation.

Fending Off Discrimination on Recruiting Sites

Discrimination is real, whether it is subconscious or not. Some websites are using visual-recognition AI to analyze if there could be a correlation between the physical traits in photos job-seekers upload and the number of recruiters who don’t contact them or view their full profile. Realizing and verifying these links helps raise awareness and potentially change the way the recruiting process works. With this data in hand, some companies are going so far as to remove names and images from resume sites altogether to maintain an initial focus on qualifications without any potential bias.

Your AI system is only as smart as the information its given. Check out WebPurify’s Training Data for Computer Vision service and how we produce training datasets for AI, specifically for moderating user generated content.