By 2021, an artificial intelligence should ensure decorum and order in online games like Call of Duty: Warzone, WoW or League of Legends . Intel is working on “Bleep”: the program is supposed to remove toxic, hurtful language from in-game voice chats.
This is Bleep: At the GDC Showcase Event, Intel presented the new program “Bleep”.
The idea of the program is that Bleep recognizes “hurtful” words in audio chats and removes them immediately.
We already know such curse word filters from text chats. Bleep is set to regulate this in the voice chats of online games in the future.
How exactly the words will be removed has not been disclosed by Intel. However, with the name “Bleep”, it is likely that the words will be censored. This is known from American television: If someone says “Fuck”, they are silenced afterward.
There are specific filters for
- Body shaming and discrimination against people with disabilities
- Aggressive statements
- Hateful remarks against the LGBTQ+ community
- Misogyny
- Profanity
- The “N-word” – Yes or No
- Racism and xenophobia
- Sexually suggestive language
- Swearing
- “White Nationalism”, a particular sub-type of racism
Many of the categories have 4 filters, allowing players to decide how many of the curse words and insults should be filtered out. None, some, most, or all.
“This won’t eliminate the problem, but it’s an important step”
This is what Intel says: They immediately scale back expectations. They know that a technical solution cannot solve the problem itself.
However, they hope that Bleep is an important step in the right direction. It will allow players to influence and control their experience.
The plan is to launch the software “Bleep” in beta by 2021. But it seems that Intel is currently only focusing on the English language. So it may take a while before we are safe from nasty flamers in online games in Germany and the nastiness is “bleeped” out.
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It is also still unclear in which games the technology will actually work. In 2019, there was a study on which online games are the most toxic. DOTA 2, CS:GO, and Overwatch were at the top. But Call of Duty and LoL are also considered dangerous.
