Recently, Chinese scientists have developed a device that helps fight pornography, which is banned in the country. There are other technological solutions, both for people who want to stop watching pornography, and for combating harassment, human trafficking or the sexual exploitation of children.
AI against pornography
Chinese scientists have created a device that analyzes brain impulses and can determine when a person is watching pornography. This was reported this week by the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. The device was tested on 15 men who were seated in front of computer screens and shown different types of content. So the researchers taught the device to detect brain impulses that occur precisely when viewing pornography, and now when such content appears on the screen, the device sends a signal.
Pornography is banned in China, and there are special censors in the country who browse the Internet in search of prohibited content. The device can facilitate the work of such censors.
If they accidentally miss pornographic images due to fatigue or for some other reason, the device will correct them.
This is not the only time technology is being used to track the viewing of “immoral” content. The American company Covenant Eyes has developed AI-based tools that scan the contents of the gadget for the presence of pornographic content. Such software, a subscription to which costs $17 per month, can be installed on a PC, smartphone or tablet. It checks not only websites, but also applications, instant messengers and social networks. One of the applications from Covenant Eyes simply blocks pornographic content. But the company’s other app, called The Victory App, not only searches for pornography but, if found, sends a message about it to “partners in responsibility” specified by the user, such as family members, friends, or a priest.
“Pornography affects the entire church—men, women, children, couples and singles. It prevents us from fully engaging in relationships, church life, and a meaningful life in general. Enough!” — the creators of Covenant Eyes write. According to their own data, more than 1.5 million people have already downloaded these applications.
Technologies to combat harassment and human trafficking
The developments of Chinese scientists and applications to combat pornography look rather intimidating, but there are more understandable technological tools of this kind. For example, AI systems of similar action are in applications for parental control – for example, in the Canopy service. Parents can install it on their children’s gadgets, and it will automatically block content that is inappropriate for them, including pornography.
In 2018, several developers created the Spot chatbot – it is designed for HR departments of companies and with its help employees can complain about sexual harassment without communicating with people at the first stage.
“Spot works like the perfect interviewer, helping you remember and asking the right questions so you don’t miss anything,” says Julia Shaw, co-founder of Spot and a psychologist at Imperial College London who specializes in criminal psychology and the mechanisms of memory. asks leading questions. While working on the chatbot, she applied her knowledge of the workings of memory mechanisms, and also studied the surveys conducted in cases of rape and other similar crimes by the police.
According to Ms. Shaw, in the case of rape and harassment, one of the most important points is the quickest possible conversion of the victim. Small companies pay $800 per year for a Spot subscription, for large companies the amount is set depending on the requirements and the number of employees.
For victims of harassment, a chatbot created in 2017 from the startup Botler AI is also intended. As in the case of Spot, the bot communicates with people who want to report sexual harassment, etc., for this AI has studied hundreds of thousands of criminal cases of this kind in the US and Canada. The bot asks questions – and then reports whether there is a crime under the law of a particular state, and, if so, draws up a statement that can then be filed with the police.
Developed by Thorn, an anti-trafficking and child sexual exploitation organization, Spotlight uses predictive analytics.
Such technologies help to identify victims of such crimes from photographs from various illegal sites, and in some cases also identify child traffickers. More than 17,000 child victims have been identified in this way since 2016, according to Thorn. The Spotlight app is used by US and Canadian law enforcement agencies. Another similar tool, Traffic Jam, also uses AI to find victims of human trafficking and other such crimes.