[brigadier132]

This application of AI is the one I'm most terrified by. Even in the benign use it's training a bunch of people into censoring themselves into a specific way of speaking.

The only way I can think of this being justified is if it's run and controlled by the user themself so they can control what they hear. Not to control how others speak.

[viraptor]

You can't run a public service without moderation, unless you want to end up with a toxic swamp. Definitely not a kids game. Typically it's worked around by not allowing player to player chat at all, or making it extremely limited, but even then you get workarounds (see dark souls with "try finger, but hole")

Moderation is trying to enforce some standards for the whole environment. Even if you got the tools to implement filtering for yourself, you're still sitting there with people who are happy with the abusive environment and will get through one way or another. And you get them everywhere around you. It's not something that each player can deal with separately unless they opt into private groups - but that's not the environment Roblox is encouraging.

[brigadier132]

I'd rather not have any moderated discussions than give totalitarian dictatorships the ability to monitor all communication in real time.

[sodality2]

Don't use Roblox then. I guarantee every parent ever would rather their kids have access to a moderated Roblox than an unmoderated one, though.

[SpaceLawnmower]

This analogy doesn't make sense for a game designed exclusively for kids where the "totalitarian government" is the company that runs the game.

[brigadier132]

There's no analogy. Like most technology this is dual use and can easily be repurposed for mass surveilance.

[viraptor]

Voice recognition and saving audio streams is not new. It has basically nothing to do with this tech. It's not getting repurposed for surveillance.

[brigadier132]

> It's not getting repurposed for surveillance.

This absolutely will be used for surveillance. It's literal express purpose is surveillance and automated behavior modification.

[hobofan]

Depending on what the desired level of "allowed exposure" is, manual reports + reviews can also work, without having up-front always-on live redaction of the audio feed.

E.g. while it's not perfect, Valorant's audio chats are a lot less toxic than many comparable FPS games via such a system. Of course that still won't protect you from one-off hearing slurs.

So that + elective client side filtering (if you really never want to experience profanity), seems like the best of both worlds.

[tsukikage]

> manual reports + reviews can also work

manual reports + reviews requires recording the feed for later review; real-time filtering does not. A number of other commenters have mentioned that being recorded bothers them; those folk should be arguing for the real-time AI moderator.

[viraptor]

I'm not sure how many people are interested in not hearing abuse -vs- not playing with abusive people. If someone called your name and then you heard bleeping, you know exactly what happened anyway. Is there actually a group of people happy with that result?

[jrflowers]

> Even in the benign use it's training a bunch of people into censoring themselves into a specific way of speaking.

Imagine a place on the internet where your speech is moderated, like a place you’re not forced to use and has rules about what you can and can’t post. Speech that goes against the rules could be hidden or removed and the users of the service train themselves to speak in a certain way when they are using it.

Perish the thought, that sounds like a dang dystopian Netflix show

[brigadier132]

Now imagine if that place was everywhere at all times because it's completely automated and cheap.

[jrflowers]

Imagine if optional things on Roblox became mandatory in society… spooky stuff

[brigadier132]

Is communication optional? You are restricting this to only being used by Roblox, it will be used by everyone.

But yes, please keep defending the development of mass surveillance technology.

[jrflowers]

This is like saying you saw a No Shirt No Shoes No Service sign at a restaurant and are worried that men with guns might come and enforce that rule in your home. Would that be terrible? Yes. Does the fact that the sign exists mean that you’re fated to nail it to your own wall? No.

[BoredPositron]

Eh...as long as it's used in environments where people want to have a good time, I don't care. I know a lot will stomp their feet and talk about precedents and dangerous steps but having played games on euw servers for 25 years now. I am all for it.

[bradknowles]

Double plus ungood.