Roblox is introducing a new chat AI feature in an effort to improve safety while preventing users from feeling completely left in the dark. Roblox has been making many adjustments in recent times to the chat functionality, likely due in part to the criticism it’s faced regarding children’s safety on the platform.
As is the case with many games and online experiences these days, this isn’t the first time that Roblox has looked to AI to solve its issues. Back in January, Roblox began using an AI-powered age check that’s designed to look at images or video of the user and determine their age bracket. Once categorized, age groups are separated from one another, with limits on which groups can communicate. However, that update drew a lot of backlash from users, as many found after being categorized that they could no longer communicate with friends they’d previously chatted with, and those impacted saw their Roblox chat history with said individuals vanish. Now, Roblox is trying a different method of protecting kids in the chat.
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Roblox Rolls Out AI-Powered Chat Summaries
Roblox is now reportedly testing AI chat summaries in-game in an effort to further improve safety for kids on Roblox while also helping users to not feel quite as left out. After the aforementioned introduction of chat brackets, when a conversation was going on in Roblox, users would see any messages from age brackets inaccessible to them as being blocked out with a lock, so users would know chats were happening, but not what said users were talking about. Now, the game platform is setting up a summarization AI that shows what the general conversation is about, even if the user can’t see any of the specific messages being sent. These summaries are filtered beforehand, so if a chat contains inappropriate conversations, they won’t be included in the summary.
In theory, this means that if many Roblox users from different restricted age brackets are chatting in a server together, a conversation can be held, even if players can’t see what every single person is saying. Users who can chat with each other can follow the same topic in their own conversations if they so choose. However, users are also being given the option of opting out of the AI feature, which will keep their messages from becoming part of the summary for other users.
For the moment, this feature is only being tested, so not everyone will necessarily see it in-game at this time. Additionally, it’s possible that Roblox could decide to ultimately not use the feature, or change it considerably before it gets a global rollout. At the same time, Roblox is also testing a global chat function that would let players communicate across multiple servers. The global chat, however, will still be restricted by things like age brackets, language, and so on.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
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This is just the latest effort by Roblox to utilize AI in meaningful ways in-game. In addition to determining age and summarizing chat, Roblox previously introduced a chat rephrasing function that alters messages to keep them neutral and free of profanity. Part of the goal is to keep players from seeing strings of text that have been censored to “#####” by instead filtering out and/or rephrasing the offensive portions of a message. However, these functions are limited to chat, so there may still be ways that users can get around them, like in the past, when Roblox players used in-game graffiti to spread hate speech.
- Released
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September 1, 2006
- ESRB
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Teen / Diverse Content: Discretion Advised,
In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), Users Interact - Developer(s)
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Roblox Corporation
- Publisher(s)
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Roblox Corporation
