Can AI help us understand ‘skibidi toilet’?

Gen Alpha’s language seems designed to confuse both parents and machines — and for now, it’s winning.

- Catherine Thorbecke

Tech giants would be wise to invest more research into studying youth linguistics, not just for content moderation but also to understand the online worlds children live in, says the writer.

(PHOTO: AFP)

In the breakout Netflix crime drama Adolescence, British police scramble for clues after a 13-year-old boy is accused of killing his classmate.

Scouring Instagram, investigators initially assume he and the victim were friends - until an officer’s teenage son explains that the emojis under his posts are cloaked references to something more nefarious.

Now, some authorities are hoping technology can help crack this code.

The Australian Federal Police is working with Microsoft to develop a prototype artificial intelligence (AI) tool that will “interpret emojis and Gen Z and Alpha slang in encrypted communications and chat groups to identify sadistic online exploitation”, according to Commissioner Krissy Barrett. She said the goal was to fight back against an online ring of “crimefluencers” and make it “quicker for our teams to save children from harm much earlier”.

Can AI keep pace with the warp-speed evolution of digital slang? No cap: That’s a tall order. The technology might be able to parse balance sheets, but the idea of teaching it to speak teen is giving boomer.