Submitted via IRC for takyon
Facebook Increasingly Reliant on A.I. To Predict Suicide Risk
A year ago, Facebook started using artificial intelligence to scan people's accounts for danger signs of imminent self-harm.
[...] "To just give you a sense of how well the technology is working and rapidly improving ... in the last year we've had 3,500 reports," she says. That means AI monitoring is causing Facebook to contact emergency responders an average of about 10 times a day to check on someone — and that doesn't include Europe, where the system hasn't been deployed. (That number also doesn't include wellness checks that originate from people who report suspected suicidal behavior online.)
Davis says the AI works by monitoring not just what a person writes online, but also how his or her friends respond. For instance, if someone starts streaming a live video, the AI might pick up on the tone of people's replies.
[...] "Ever since they've introduced livestreaming on their platform, they've had a real problem with people livestreaming suicides," Marks says. "Facebook has a real interest in stopping that."
He isn't sure this AI system is the right solution, in part because Facebook has refused to share key data, such as the AI's accuracy rate. How many of those 3,500 "wellness checks" turned out to be actual emergencies? The company isn't saying.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:31AM (23 children)
Facebook is always meddling. If any one of us decides that we want do suicide, what right does Zuckerberg have to interfere?
Euthenasia is pretty much outlawed in the US, and it seems to be true of most of Europe as well. That doctor - Kavorkian? They hounded his ass for assisting in suicides.
We can make a reasonable argument that you may not have the right to broadcast your suicide on Facebook. But, neither does Facebook have the right to interfere in your suicide.
Thoughts?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:00AM (2 children)
Absolutely true. Some of the direct harm from such clumsy "help" is in mistakes (say, someone is citing a book or discussing a personage. Then suddenly the police knocks on the door (or breaks it down - they are very eager to help.) This will be recorded in the database forever and may harm the person later ("he attempted a suicide...") - and good luck proving anything.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:42PM
The night before that I emailed my manager to tell him that I had Schizoaffective Disorder, that I was doing poorly as well as give him the link to Living with Schizoaffective Disorder [warplife.com].
Then I admitted myself voluntarily to a psychiatric hospital, where they took away my phone. I expect they had reason for taking it but even so, lots of hospitals let me keep my phone and computer. They won't let me keep my power cords but they will charge my devices behind the nurses desk. Most hospitals even have free wifi for the patients.
So my boss can't reach me on the phone after he gets my mail and so hilarity ensued.
I was in the hospital for ten days by which time my boss as well as our HR manager were both convinced I was dead.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:52PM
If the police don't shoot them in "self defense" for being "black while trying to commit suicide".
(Score: 5, Funny) by rigrig on Tuesday November 20 2018, @10:59AM (2 children)
He has an obligation to his customers: dead people don't click ads.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:18PM (1 child)
But dead people can win elections.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday November 20 2018, @02:46PM
It is more desirable for them to vote than to run for office, or win.
Proposal: grave side voter registration.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @12:21PM
Less people equals less data equals less revenue
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday November 20 2018, @03:10PM (11 children)
The vast majority of suicides (successful or otherwise) are the result of mental illness. Saying that people have a right to determine their own fate is all well and good, until you realise that the brain they are using to make that determination is faulty. Intervening in suicide is the right thing to do, with the possible exception of certain extreme cases (terminally ill & in constant pain etc).
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 20 2018, @03:18PM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:37PM (1 child)
Given the high number of suicide survivors and how happy they are they didn't succeed I will now label your post as "libertarian pure-freedom-only nonsense".
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:33PM
There's a difference between people who actually want to kill themselves, and people who make a show of it for other emotional reasons. Surviving a suicide attempt doesn't necessarily mean they're just incompetent at the act.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Disagree) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:42PM (3 children)
[citation needed]
And who exactly determines whether a person's brain is "faulty"? This seems to me a similar question to the abortion debate. If we have the right to end our fetus's life, why not the right to end our own? The argument could be made that the latter is actually *more* ethical because I'm not hurting anyone else by committing suicide.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:03PM (2 children)
With pleasure, if common sense won't serve and please pardon my appeal to authority.
[Emphasis mine]
And another....
If you're looking for studies and not assertions: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/497155 [jamanetwork.com] and https://www.sane.org/mental-health-and-illness/facts-and-guides/suicidal-behaviour [sane.org] and http://www.jaypeejournals.com/eJournals/ShowText.aspx?ID=12834&Type=FREE&TYP=TOP&IID=1000&Value=64&isPDF=YES [jaypeejournals.com] and https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/psychological-autopsy-studies-of-suicide-a-systematic-review/49EEDF1D29B26C270A2788275995FDEE [cambridge.org]
So if you disagree further (and that's an "if"), the [citation needed] is now on you.
So...
Well, who does so today? The answer is a mental health expert in conjunction with a court of law. In a genuine emergency, any citizen would be covered under good samaritan laws to intercede. The evaluating expert may temporarily restrain someone if there is a genuine belief of threat to self of others just as a civilian can. Because above. But the professional still has to take the issue before a court and get a judge to certify that the person is not capable of making his or her own decisions. (Assuming the person doesn't voluntarily submit themselves, which can happen too).
There are persons who will still ultimately commit suicide, but there are those who recover from that belief - and would not have the opportunity to have done so without that detection and support (generally).
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:27PM (1 child)
I notice you didn't address the latter part of my argument. I was being somewhat rhetorical with the "who decides" part to make a point. Deciding that somebody no longer deserves to exercise their inalienable rights is not a thing to be taken lightly, no matter how many degrees and certifications you have. Specifically this case is the worst, because you're taking away the person's ability to opt out of the judgment.
(Although come to think of it..."life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"...what if life and the pursuit of happiness are mutually exclusive at this point?)
Being a threat to oneself vs. a threat to others are two very different things. To continue the abortion analogy, how would people feel about somebody rushing in and suddenly telling them that they can't get their abortion because some yahoo with a fancy title has decided that they know better than the woman, and has gotten her declared crazy so she can't have the abortion?
Are psychiatrists ever going to find a suicidal person not crazy? Because if we're defining suicidal ideation as crazy to begin with, then this is a nullary argument and you're axiomatically correct. I don't accept that. What if the person has reasoned arguments for suicide? "I've been massively irradiated and it's going to take the next month for me to slowly, painfully fall apart and drown in my own fluids and there's nothing anybody can do to fix that."
Thanks for the links.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday November 21 2018, @12:14AM
You're welcome. And yes, I did skip over it a little bit. You are correct that removing the right to liberty, expressed in bioethics as the denial of patient autonomy, is not something to be taken lightly at all. And yes, the default model is that if one wants to kill oneself that this is an irrational act unless proven otherwise. But it is equally true that the removal of autonomy is something that opens up a provider to great liability risk, which is one reason that the decision of a court is sought at the earliest opportunity. At least the risk is spread between professional entities which are nominally at arms length from each other. And courts have taken notice that a patient with decision making ability does have that freedom and medical personnel who disregard that have been found liable for taking that away.
I'm not sure that the difference you describe (self harm versus harm of others) is always that great, but I'll acknowledge that I could be wrong.
The situation you have defined in your argument, though, is not necessarily an emergency, either. And yes, psychiatrists do indeed find people given the circumstance you described not crazy. In locations where medically assisted end of life is legal (the term I prefer instead of "physician assisted suicide" but I'm in favor of allowing it) the requirement usually is at least two separate psychological evaluations conducted at least 30 days apart from each other which determine that the patient is lucid, has the capacity to understand the decision, and is not suffering from any mental pathology which could be addressed which might change the patient's decision. (Not just depression - a person seeking assistance may be depressed by their condition but still possess capacity.) However, in that case there is an understandable driver to the desire. The opposite exists as well, where there either is no clearly definable driver or that the expressed reasons do not seem to comport with objective reality. At any rate, there are indeed times where mental health professionals will look at someone's request to end his or her life and recognize a rational reason to choose that path.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:59PM (3 children)
just because it's unfortunate doesn't make it your fucking business to override their decision. everybody is a little authoritarian these days.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:27PM (2 children)
Right... let's pretend that one day your best friend learns that he had been fired in disgrace from his job, and his bank account had been emptied by thieves, and his wife is leaving and taking the dog with her because she has been fucking the dog, and all his family suddenly hates him as a penniless dog-cucked loser. And so your friend takes the decision to end his own life. "Oh well", you say, "it's your choice. Bye, buddy."
Except... It turns out none of that is true! At the last moment you learn that he still has his job and his money and his wife and his family and his dog! In some bizarre sitcom-esque twist of events, he had been given completely erroneous information! Everything is actually OK! Surely in this case, you would intervene! "Wait! Stop! None of it is true! It's all OK, you don't have to do it!"
I suspect your friend would be very grateful that you stopped him from doing something both unnecessary and irrevocable.
Well, that's kind of how mental illness works. People try to kill themselves because they believe that nobody loves them and nobody cares and it doesn't matter to anyone whether they live or die and they themselves don't care enough to bother carry on living anyway. They believe it not because it's true, but because their brain chemistry is all fucked up. It's the same situation.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:37PM (1 child)
Yeah, and what if it is true? Would you intervene anyway?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday November 21 2018, @10:44AM
Well, if the odds are 90% mental illness / 10% 'justfiable' suicide as quoted upthread then yeah, the logical choice is to intervene.
I mean if you take the 10% gamble and do nothing but get it wrong, then the person is dead and there's no going back.
If you take the 90% gamble and intervene but get it wrong, then at least they have the chance to 'correct' your 'mistake' at a later date.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:32PM (1 child)
With antidepressants, talk therapy or with shock therapy.
I was in the hospital with two women who got shock treatment while we were there. It did them both a great deal of good.
The clinical term for it is Electroconvulsive Therapy or ECT. It is regarded as the safest treatment for suicidal depression because it works immediately, whereas antidepressants can take up to two months.
I've attempted in quite serious ways twice; there have been other times when I was bent on self destruction but didn't actually try to kill myself. Each of those times, antidepressants were very effective. Right now I'm taking Elavil (amitryptiline).
I saw the same therapist in Santa Cruz once a week for thirteen years. Best sixty grand I ever spent. As I write this I'm in the waiting room at my Vancouver therapist's office.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:11PM
I dunno about all of that . . . it looks like all the mass shooters have been treated with anti-depressants and shit. I have no qualms about shooting someone that deserves shooting, but the idea of just coming unwrapped and gunning down a bunch of random people is beyond the pale.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:36PM (1 child)
We the people are the ones who demanded Facebook to meddle. Not you or me personally, but the general public. Left to their own, Facebook has no motivation to predict suicide risk, but people seem to think think Facebook is responsible for fixing any and all social and political problems that touch their platform in any way.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 21 2018, @01:39AM
I suspect that you are probably right. From my perspective, it's easy to just blame Zuck for trying to be your whole life. But, yeah, people probably did motivate him to "do something". Should we call it coercion?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jasassin on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:42AM
Sounds like a SWATTERs wet dream.
Don't do it! Your life is valuable!
Please don't kill yourself, I love you!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:24AM
this just might be a case of correlation therefore causation.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @12:49PM (1 child)
I liked it better when social networks acted like simple bulletin boards.
Now they are controlling speech on their network and inserting their own propaganda.
And the latest innovation is moving beyond the confines of their website to interfere in your life in meatspace? WTF these things are out of control. I would say it’s time for some regulations, but the govt is too inept to get it right or do it in a timely manner. The only realistic way to fight it is to disengage. DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday November 20 2018, @02:49PM
The government doesn't want to regulate how Facebook manipulates and interferes with your real life.
The government wants to participate in it.
And foreign governments want to participate in it too.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:15PM (1 child)
Because when a Millennial says 'OMG, I literally want to kill myself', what they mean is that they are mildly irritated by something that just appeared on their Facebook news feed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday November 20 2018, @02:51PM
OMG! Millennials literally don't know the meaning of the word literally.
Social Media will be the downfall of civilization, led by Facebook.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @03:11PM (1 child)
Often very large employers do their own life insurance actuarial tables against their own employee data. Then they buy life insurance on the employees who they think are most likely to die. Generally their data is more accurate than the insurers, and they make money on it. The insurers loss is externalized to the shlubs who buy policies on themselves.
Think about what FB is doing, and then ask yourself: "Is what they are doing philanthropic, or about gaming the life insurance industry?".
The idea that this is being used for philanthropy is niave. If they can do it for philanthropic purposes (inflicting welfare) then they can do it to inflict loss can they not? And from which is profit more easily realized?
What the article is talking about is the use of an algo to do psychological analysis and provide an applied therapy without the consent. Also without a license to practice, and without doctor patient privelege. Certainly it is unlawful. Certainly it is only possible because of an invasion of peoples privacy in violation of their indivisable human rights.
The scenario I find most likely is they have done the math. And that they possess internally, statistical evidence that their business model causes people psychological harm. Then in a vain attempt to offset the problem. They did this to try and keep people just on the edge of blowing their brains out instead of actually pulling the trigger. IOW the project may be about loss prevention against future litigation. Again, the engineers would be kept in the dark.
IMHO, what they've just created an API that somebody is eventually going to use to commit premeditated homicide via psychological battery. The purpose therefore, is to game the life insurance industry. This idea that this is lawful is quite insane.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Knowledge Troll on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:17PM
Did you notice they define success as the number of outputs the system has generated and refuse to provide data on any kind of accuracy rate? This's thing would need a false positive rate near zero if it is to be tolerated at all and that just isn't realistic.
Maybe they are playing a bigger game, I dunno, and while I found your post interesting to chew on it looks to me like they are just trying to say they are doing something. Lots of something. Never mind the something can cause great harm in the event of false positives.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:27PM (1 child)
1000000 - suicides per year worldwidej, 365 days per year
2.2b - esitmated no. of facebook users in a world population of (not counting europe) 6.6b
(1000000/365) / (6.6/2.2) = 913 facebook users suicide daily.
So this algo is catching about 1 percent even if it turns out that what it's catching is imminent suicide - Facebook very explicitly does not say.
As the article points out this / will / have the effect of squelching discussion of depression (and suicide) with the knock on effect of increasing suicide rates* so nice job breaking it, hero.
._.
* by how much? who knows. facebook knows. delete your account.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:59PM
That jives with the above theory. They throw some bones to the authorities on a few high probability cases to create plausible deniability. Then they use the remainder of the high probability cases for cheating, or maybe selling data to, insurers. While insurers use actuarial tables in the same way, insurers don't interface with users using automated influence systems built by psychologists who, if licensed, are effectively committing malpractice by working for marketing firms.
There is a medical conflict of interests issue here. So why is not the surgeon generals arm not ten inches up Facebooks ass with a fist full of subpeonas? Not to mention the whatever national board licenses psychologists? The current state of industrial psychology is a fucking plague on mental health. There are people who presume themselves to be responsible for this. What have they got to say about it?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:36PM
This whole "how should they go about trying to prevent suicides" thing presupposes that they should go about trying to prevent suicides in the first place. I don't accept that this is facebook's job.
As a general rule, I imagine the majority here on SN when asked "should facebook do X with their data," the answer would be "fuck no."
Humorously, there's a periodic occurrence on the Magic: The Gathering subreddits where a reddit bot sees somebody posting mentioning a Magic card with "suicide" in the name and posts some concerned drivel about "help is out there; click this link."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:21PM (1 child)
Right... let's pretend that one day your best friend learns that he had been fired in disgrace from his job, and his bank account had been emptied by thieves, and his wife is leaving and taking the dog with her because she has been fucking his dog, and all his family suddenly hates him and a penniless dog-cucked loser, and so he takes the decision to end his own life. "Oh well", you say, "it's your choice. Bye, buddy."
Except... It turns out none of that is true! At the last moment you learn that he still has his job and his money and his wife and his family and his dog! In some bizarre sitcom-esque twist of plot, he had been given completely erroneous information! Everything is actually OK! Surely in this case, you would intervene! "Wait! Stop! None of it is true! It's all OK, you don't have to do it!"
I suspect your friend would be very grateful that you stopped him from doing something both necessary and irrevocable.
Well, that's kind of how mental illness works. People try to kill themselves because they believe that nobody loves them and nobody cares and it doesn't matter to anyone whether they live or die. They believe it not because it's true, but because their brain chemistry is all fucked up. It's the same situation.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:24PM
Oops, this was supposed to be upthread, a reply to to an AC who replied to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:37PM (1 child)
Only an AI could do this job well. Any person who had to troll other peoples facebook feeds all day would quickly lose the desire to prevent any of their deaths.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @11:05PM
Wouldn't it be great to be paid to troll Facebook users all day? Trawl, on the other hand...
(Score: 0, Spam) by amelia22brown on Thursday December 06 2018, @10:34AM
Go to http://www.article.com [article.com]