<
https://www.engadget.com/mason-city-iowa-school-district-ai-book-ban-censorship-202541565.html>
'It certainly didn't take long for AI's other shoe to drop, what with the
emergent technology already being perverted to commit confidence scams and
generate spam content. We can now add censorship to that list as the
Globe
Gazette reports the school board of Mason City, Iowa has begun leveraging AI
technology to cultivate lists of potentially bannable books from the district's
libraries ahead of the 2023/24 school year.
In May, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed, and Governor Kim
Reynolds subsequently signed, Senate File 496 (SF 496), which enacted sweeping
changes to the state's education curriculum. Specifically it limits what books
can be made available in school libraries and classrooms, requiring titles to
be "age appropriate” and without “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex
act,” per Iowa Code 702.17.
But ensuring that every book in the district's archives adhere to these new
rules is quickly turning into a mammoth undertaking. "Our classroom and school
libraries have vast collections, consisting of texts purchased, donated, and
found," Bridgette Exman, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction
at Mason City Community School District, said in a statement. "It is simply not
feasible to read every book and filter for these new requirements."
As such, the Mason City School District is bringing in AI to parse suspect
texts for banned ideas and descriptions since there are simply too many titles
for human reviewers to cover on their own. Per the district, a "master list" is
first cobbled together from "several sources" based on whether there were
previous complaints of sexual content. Books from that list are then scanned by
"AI software" which tells the state censors whether or not there actually is a
depiction of sex in the book.'
Via Wayne Radinsky.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
