Right problem, wrong solution?

The WEF put this out, so immediately it’s suspect in the minds of many, but let’s entertain the proposal, nonetheless. Online abuse is a real problem and occurs constantly. Someone has proposed a way to help fight it.

Here’s an excerpt from the article entitled: The solution to online abuse? AI plus human intelligence

“The ‘Trust & Safety’ intelligent solution to detect online abuse

While AI provides speed and scale and human moderators provide precision, their combined efforts are still not enough to proactively detect harm before it reaches platforms. To achieve proactivity, trust and safety teams must understand that abusive content doesn’t start and stop on their platforms. Before reaching mainstream platforms, threat actors congregate in the darkest corners of the web to define new keywords, share URLs to resources and discuss new dissemination tactics at length. These secret places where terrorists, hate groups, child predators and disinformation agents freely communicate can provide a trove of information for teams seeking to keep their users safe.

The problem is that accessing this information is in no way scalable. Classic intelligence collection requires deep research, expertise, access and a fair amount of assimilation skills – human capacities that cannot be mimicked by a machine.” – Inbal Goldberger via WEForum.org

So, what’s the problem with that? The problem is that who gets to decide what is “harmful”? Who would be the subject matter experts mentioned in this scheme? The same people who decide what is racist, homophobic, or Islamophobic? The same people who censored any information that questioned any the CDC’s or WHO’s recommendation on fighting COVID? Will adding AI add impartiality into the system, or simply amplify the agendas of those who control it?

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As an aside, the WEF wants you to know the article cited is an opinion piece and does necessarily represent the views of the World Economic Forum. They put the following advisory at the top of the article:

“Readers: Please be aware that this article has been shared on websites that routinely misrepresent content and spread misinformation. We ask you to note the following:

1. The content of this article is the opinion of the author, not the World Economic Forum.
2. Please read the piece for yourself. The Forum is committed to publishing a wide array of voices and misrepresenting content only diminishes open conversations.” – WEForum.org

Maybe WEF, if accurate accounts of so many of your plans weren’t so disturbing, you wouldn’t have to worry about anybody “misrepresenting” them.