Hate speech-detecting AIs easily fooled by humans: Study

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems meant to screen out online hate speech can be easily duped by humans, a study has found. Hateful text and comments are an ever-increasing problem in online environments, yet addressing the rampant issue relies on being able to identify toxic content. Researchers from Aalto University in Finland have discovered weaknesses in many machine learning detectors currently used to recognise and keep hate speech at bay. Many popular social media and online platforms use hate speech detectors. However, bad grammar and awkward spelling – intentional or not – might make toxic social media comments harder for AI detectors to spot.