There are many things to love and enjoy about the gaming world we live in. Currently, we have three publishers with different systems that produce incredible games. Yes, even Xbox. These games can be tailored to the needs of many different gamers via the genres that they inhabit. Gaming worlds have never been more expansive, more detailed, and filled with narratives at times that would rival Hollywood. However, the twist with this is that due to the nature of our world and the power of online gaming, harassment has never been bigger. To that end, Sony is allegedly coming up with something to try to fix that.
As noted by PatentScope, the company is attempting to use a mix of biometric readings within a player’s body and AI to stop the cyberbullying and online harassment that has plagued numerous gaming communities over the years.
How would that work? Simply put, the AI would read the players’ heartrate as they are being bullied, and that will alert them that something is going on that needs to be fixed:
“Harassment detection in this manner (that is, identifying a victim of harassment first as opposed to identifying a harasser first) is advantageous in that the number of false positive detections of harassment incidents may be reduced.”
Should this work, the goal of the AI within the game/system would then take the harassed player to another server where they can try again without having to fear that person, and the person harassing them will be dealt with by Sony via the data gotten so that they don’t have to manually file a complaint and hope that someone sees it.
As the patent further notes, something must be done to stop the cycle of cyber-violence and put less burden on the victims to report their attackers:
“There is a need in the art for a harassment detection techniques that do not require the victim to report the harassment they are experiencing, which should thereby decrease the proportion of harassment incidents that never get reported and also improve the well-being and safety of users participating in shared environments.”
Obviously, there are risks to this kind of idea. However, there are also positives that need to be explored. The biggest question will be, can Sony make these systems accurate enough to ensure that they get all the victims of cyberbullying and then find the ones who hurt them?
If they can pull this off, then perhaps gaming can be a better place like it was before the online age.
