Google AI’s biggest test: hunting hate

An advertiser boycott of YouTube is testing a critical and much-hyped part of Google's future - its prowess in artificial intelligence. Some experts in the field say the technology isn't up to scratch yet, but that if any company can solve the problem at hand, it's the online search giant.

Some of the world's biggest marketers halted YouTube spending this month after ads from large brands were found running alongside hateful and extremist videos. Google parent, Alphabet Inc., risks losing $750 million in revenue this year from the debacle, analysts at Nomura Instinet estimated this week.

That's less than one percent of projected sales this year, so it can weather the financial storm. But it's likely an incentive for the company to re-direct AI investments and accelerate research efforts already underway.

To detect and police content across YouTube's sprawling library, and ensure ads don't run against questionable content, Google must solve an AI problem no one has cracked yet - automatically understanding everything that's going on in videos, including gesticulations and other human nuances.

A potential solution lies in machine learning, a powerful AI technique for automatically recognizing patterns across reams of data - a Google specialty. CEO Sundar Pichai has pledged to infuse the technology across all its products, and the company touts its abilities in the field to software developers, cloud-computing clients, advertisers and shareholders.

Computer scientists doubt technology alone can expunge offensive videos.

'We're not there yet where we can, say, find all extremist content,” said Hany Farid, a Dartmouth professor and senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project, which has repeatedly called on YouTube to tackle this problem.

He recommends companies such as Google and Facebook Inc. deploy more human editors to filter content.

'Machine learning, AI is nowhere near that yet,” he said. 'Don't believe the hype.”