The Challenges of AI-based Content Moderation

With the rise of the usage of social media apps and the proliferation of user generated content, there has been a revolutionary change in the publishing of content on the internet. The content publishing can be related to either individuals or to a particular business, who can easily publish their content online with the availability of a smart device and a stable web connection. Over the years, AI has been providing several benefits to the users albeit a debate on the challenges of AI-based Content moderation has been brewing up.

There has been a rise in the company’s level of awareness about the importance of maintaining reputation on the online platforms along with the prevention of them being used for something unacceptable according to the rules and regulations. The methods of moderating the content on these online platforms have been carried out by the human moderators which come out to be a time-consuming process and are high in cost. Due to high pressure on the individuals they might suffer from psychological issues, thus to avoid these problems, individuals have moved towards AI.

A report of the World Economic Forum stated that by the year 2025, there will be the creation of approximately 463 exabytes of data on daily basis. This quantity of content every day makes it intractable for the human moderators to maintain the pace of the work, even if it’s a big and highly skilled team.

CONTENT MODERATION:

To make your company grow it is important to keep the track of content that your company publishes or is published on your company’s behalf.  A common practice these days to keep the track of the online content is Content Moderation. This can be done in various areas related to the business like e-commerce marketplaces, forums available online, and different platforms for the community of users.

Publishing of the un-moderated content on the website gives out the invitation to various risks such as the presence of obscene, illegal, and fraudulent content on the website which might be inappropriate for public viewing. To maintain a good brand reputation and conserve the users’ interests, content moderation is an essential step that should be taken by the company for these platforms.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN CONTENT MODERATION:

Most of the industries are trying to get a bigger share of the pie that is the internet. Various companies have started operating their businesses online. The sellers are moving their business to online stores while the companies in the healthcare industry are using AI for keeping a better track record of the patients. We have seen the rise in the percentage of social media platforms too where individuals can express their views related to a particular context.

Artificial Intelligence is said to have the caliber of taking over the human-led jobs due to its advanced technology. The introduction of AI in the business has led to the beginning of a lot of automated processes and tasks which earlier required humans. One such task is Content moderation. Companies have been moving towards the use of AI in the content moderation, which otherwise required human moderators.

ADVANCEMENTS MADE BY AI IN CONTENT MODERATION:

1. Higher Accuracy: The human moderators are required to work at a high speed which leads to them committing despite a lot of guidelines for carrying out the tasks. They are required to skim through the video at a very high speed which can lead them to make false judgments about the content. To achieve a higher level of accuracy companies now have been moving towards AI which tends to do content moderation more accurately and at a higher speed.
2. Flagging of Content: Various companies have been using AI for the flagging of the content which can later be analyzed by the human moderators. There is a lot of content that still requires a human for the filtration.
3. Reducing the Human Cost of Moderation: Viewing harmful content on daily basis can affect the mental health of an individual. This stress led by the content which they are exposed is termed as Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). By the introduction of AI on the content moderation related tasks, the companies are trying to bring down this toll on the human’s health. The human moderators come into the picture when AI flags a particular content.

CHALLENGES OF AI BASED ON CONTENT MODERATION

1. REQUIREMENT OF HUMAN LIKE KNOWLEDGE: The content can be in the form of a video, picture, or text which can at times be challenging as it requires a human-like knowledge for detecting the inappropriate content.
2. LACK OF EXPLAINABILITY: When the content moderation is done by using Artificial Intelligence, it might not be able to explain the reason behind categorizing certain content as inappropriate for the platform. Thus, moderating content with AI comes with a lack of transparency. Also, it is difficult to specify the accuracy and speed of the task performed.
3. IMPACT ON THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH: In case a group of users who operate online are not interpreted by the AI appropriately, they might be treated unfairly as per the AI training data. This can further affect the minor communities on the platform and their freedom of speech.
4. BUILDING UP PUBLIC CONFIDENCE: It is essential to make the public believe in AI and its benefits. The public still doubts the AI and its capabilities when compared to the humans in the area of content moderation. There is still a lot of scopes for the companies to feed in the data to AI for a better understanding of the diversity of people and decision making. The companies can overcome this challenge by conducting routine tests for content moderation system based on AI.