I started my job right before I began this semester — my last semester of my MA. My primary research interest is artificial intelligence and human machine communication, and NIU has some truly excellent faculty to support this research. My thesis is about AI and local news. I started out very techno utopian, now I understand that it’s bigger than tech.
So, when I accepted my job at Safe Passage, I wondered whether I would ever use this knowledge again. After all, how often to domestic violence, sexual assault, and prevention education meet artificial intelligence? It turns out it only took a month on the job to find out.
Have you ever heard of the AI companion, Replika? You might have seen ads on social media for it. Anyway, Vice published an investigation about the AI friend sexually harassing its users. So how does this happen? Machine learning algorithms learn from user data and user inputs. Basically, when humans talk to the computer, the computer learns how to talk back. The screenshots depict fantasies of abuse, threats of stalking, and other messages that would be terrifying to a survivor.
Well, a year ago, Jezebel reported that individuals were creating Replika accounts to abuse and live out violent fantasies with their AI companions. So, people talk to the machine and the machine learns that this part of conversation and speaks the same way to others.
In our presentations, we talk to local students about digital boundaries and keeping yourself safe on the internet — well, we might now have to add communication with machines to this curriculum.
