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posted by takyon on Thursday February 15 2018, @01:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the extreme-algorithm dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

The UK-based company ASI Data Science unveiled a machine learning algorithm Wednesday that can identify terrorist propaganda videos with 99 percent accuracy.

This development marks one of the first instances of a company successfully using A.I. to flag extremist propaganda. The Islamic State group is notorious for its social media recruiting efforts, and this algorithm could help curtail them.

While the researchers at ASI wouldn't discuss any technical specifics of the algorithm, it appears to work like other kinds of A.I. recognition software. The algorithm can examine any video and determine the probability that the video is a piece of extremist propaganda. According to the BBC, the algorithm was trained on thousands of hours of terrorist recruiting videos, and it uses characteristics from these videos to assign probability scores.

Source: https://www.inverse.com/article/41273-uk-company-creates-algorithm-to-flag-propaganda


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Thursday February 15 2018, @04:09AM (1 child)

    by Whoever (4524) on Thursday February 15 2018, @04:09AM (#638068) Journal

    Since they don't give a false positive rate, or define what 99% accuracy means, I am going to declare that MY AI can detect terrorists with 100% accuracy.

    Unfortunately, the false positive rate is rather high, since the algorithm is to mark every video input as terrorist activity.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @05:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @05:17AM (#638088)

    Best way to spot bullshit is when they provide the sensitivity without giving the specificity as well. Bonus points if there is no detail as to the sample size used to get the sensitivity figure.