Facebook is starting to roll out Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based tools to help identify when someone might be expressing thoughts of suicide, including on Facebook Live.
The initiative – that will use pattern recognition to detect posts or live videos where someone might be expressing thoughts of suicide to help authorities respond faster will eventually be available worldwide, except the European Union.
Making this announcement in a blog post, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook said:
“Starting today we’re upgrading our AI tools to identify when someone is expressing thoughts about suicide on Facebook so we can help get them the support they need quickly. In the last month alone, these AI tools have helped us connect with first responders quickly more than 100 times.
“With all the fear about how AI may be harmful in the future, it’s good to remind ourselves how AI is actually helping save people’s lives today.
‘There’s a lot more we can do to improve this further. Today, these AI tools mostly use pattern recognition to identify signals — like comments asking if someone is okay — and then quickly report them to our teams working 24/7 around the world to get people help within minutes. In the future, AI will be able to understand more of the subtle nuances of language and will be able to identify different issues beyond suicide as well, including quickly spotting more kinds of bullying and hate.”
Facebook has a team that includes a dedicated group of specialists who have specific training in suicide and self-harm.
Facebook had said September said it was working with suicide prevention partners in India to collect phrases hashtags and group names associated with online challenges encouraging self-harm or suicide.
