Alibaba Builds AI Version of Robocop to Censor Dirty Content

By Ryan Gandolfo

RoboCop has nothing on Alibaba’s new artificial intelligence (AI) pornography inspector gadget.

Granted, RoboCop was a cyborg that fought crime in Detroit while Alibaba’s latest AI tool is on the cloud. But this ‘yellow’ inspector (in Chinese the color yellow symbolizes pornographic content) can examine 100 million images daily and detect which contain suspicious and illicit content with a 99.5 percent accuracy rate.

Alibaba's 'yellow' inspector, referring to inspecting pornographic content. Image via Alibaba

The tool examines photos, videos, comments, articles, live streams and other digital content. Its primary responsibility is to detect any violent or illicit material shared on the Internet, so that companies have a more manageable task in complying with government censorship.

Equipped with top-notch voiceprint recognition, the system can recognize several languages and local dialects. It turns speech into text and then compares the content with a lexicon containing tens of thousands of dirty words, according to Xinhua.

In June, major Internet search and radio websites were ordered to remove ASRM-related pornographic content. The National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications claimed many online platforms were spreading inappropriate content via ASRM videos.

ASMR, referring to autonomous sensory meridian response, is a pleasurable sensation that starts in your head and scalp, and moves down the back of the body. Or, as Vice puts it, ‘That good tingly feeling no one can explain.’ It even has its own Reddit community with over 160,000 subscribers.

READ MORE: Reddit No Longer Accessible in China

With billions of images and content uploaded to the Internet and social media platforms each day, the task to monitor content is undoubtedly daunting – something Alibaba is obviously aiming to address with its new AI censorship tool.

Alibaba’s new tool, slated to begin operation in October, will cost an annual fee of RMB60,000 (USD8,753). Considering this technology’s output is equivalent to 20 analysts, we reckon it’s a bargain.

[Cover: image still via Metro Goldwyn Meyer Studios/IMDB]

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