In 2020, I helped create Signal for help, a hand signal notifying friends, family and those around you that “I need you to check on me in a safe way”. Our team promoted Signal for Help on social media, anticipating a pandemic-related rise with already high rates of gender-based violence, and it went viral. November 2021 in times of worry about charging, stay-at-home directives, and the rise of video calling.
Cases of women and girls using Signals for help in dangerous situations have been reported. For example, a the woman who used the SOS Signal while stopping traffic for help with her abusive husband, and another woman used it to notify staff at a gas station that she was held against her will by a violent ex-boyfriend. As a result, well-intentioned people have attempted to integrate SOS with digital technology. A company with an AI camera tool reached out to ask about building SOS recognition into their security system, and there have been similar amateur efforts discussed on social media.
The call is clear: Auto-detection can be useful to a well-intentioned friend or colleague on the other side of a video call, who might miss seeing someone on the phone. Use Signal for Help. It’s admirable that people want to help those who may be in danger, but these new uses of technology misunderstand the purpose and use of the SOS Signal.
Such efforts are part of a growing trend of using AI to recognize distress: Experiments to identify distress in pets such as chickens, cattleand pig yielded promising results because the AI seemed to break up a wide range of animal calls, meows, and growls better than the human ear.
But humans are not chickens or cattle. Intentions of abuse and control can turn narcissists into experts. In dangerous relationships, there is always the question of who is in charge of the technology.
The SOS signal is a purposefully matched tool, designed to help people communicate without a word and without leaving a digital footprint. I’m hurt… I can’t say it out loud… will you be there for me while I figure it out? Impermanence is an important trait, given the way abusers tend to be controlling and manipulative. They hide and track and monitor devices. Women’s Shelter regularly helping survivors deal with hacked smartphones, unwanted location tracking and recording apps, hidden cameras, etc. Message boards, social media and even word of mouth can help those who need help. abusers violate the people they love. In the case of Signal, abusers can use the same AI mechanism designed for safety to warn them that the person they are hurting is trying to use Signals assist.
And there are other problems with AI tools to detect human distress, including software to scan student email and search the web to self-harm and violence, as well as to identify student confusion, boredom, and distraction in the virtual classroom. In addition to ethical and privacy concerns, their implementation is based on the belief that we can reliably perceive someone in trouble and act in real ways. useful to them. These tools operate on the positivist belief that when people are in distress, they manifest it in predictable ways. And when they express it, they desire a concrete intervention.
But research shows that our assumption that human facial expressions are consistent with emotions is not an expression we can wholeheartedly trust. The mismatch between the body and the emotions can be more obvious in unhealthy relationships. Abused people talk about disconnection, about needing to “leave their bodies” in order to survive. Some mentioned the amount of time it took them to cover up the offense, injuries, and pain they had to do to appease their abusers and supportive bystanders. They talk about how conscious they are of every movement and twitch, how they chew, blink, and breathe, and that they are punished for just existing in a way that upsets their abuser.
