A city in Iowa has employed the help of artificial intelligence in detecting explicit content found in books and was enlisted by the area's school board to help remove it from their libraries.
The goal is to find books that have explicit content that may be harmful to children, and the AI has helped in flagging down the literature that would now be reviewed if they would be banned.
Mason City Schools Use AI to Flag, Potentially Ban Books
Globe Gazette reported that Iowa's Mason City school board has joined hands in using artificial intelligence to scan its libraries, particularly with the literature available for students to borrow and read. The board employed AI technologies that were not named, in its quest to flag down books that contain explicit content that is not age appropriate.
This also comes alongside what Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has recently signed, the Senate File 496 which centers on sweeping changes for the state's education curriculum.
Explicit Content Prohibited, Age Appropriate Only
AI helped in detecting sexually explicit content found in books and has flagged 19 titles so far in its quest to rid its libraries of literature that are not age-appropriate. This includes:
- Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
- Sold by Patricia McCormick
- A Court of Mist and Fury (series) by Sarah J. Maas
- Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
- Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
- Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Crank by Ellen Hopkins
- Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Feed by M.T. Anderson
- Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger
- Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
AI Content Detection for Various Media
Content detection was done manually since then, and with the presence of AI and its integration in such tools, it has made it possible to investigate content in under minutes to know what it has to offer. However, there are certain arguments that these AI detectors are not that accurate for AI-generated content, especially when using specific "watermarks."
Most tools present today which offer content detection was made for the rise of AI-generated works present in the mass media, spread widely on the internet.
Its main goal is to detect if one work was made by an AI or a machine, with famed tools like Turnitin, OpenAI's initially introduced ChatGPT detector and more.
However, AI has evolved over the months that it became a significant technology for the world, and instead of only detecting AI-generated works, it is now used for other needs including content detection for age appropriation. Schools will surely benefit from this technology, with Mason City already demonstrating its help in detecting underlying explicit content for its children's safety.
