Amazon to use artificial intelligence to censor viewing for families

IT IS an all-too common scene in living rooms: parents sit down to watch a beloved film from their youth with their children, only to find it’s not quite as innocent as they remember.

However, a solution may soon be in sight. Amazon is considering using artificial intelligence to detect sex scenes and violence in films in a move that would give viewers detailed warnings about what they were about to watch. The US streaming giant filed a patent application this month, detailing how it has invented a way to scan films using technology that eliminates the need for human checks.

AI would tell viewers ahead of watching a film how much sexual content, violence and profanity is featured in it.

Amazon’s system could overhaul the existing film and television classification system, which relies on at least two people viewing material and measuring incidents of violence and swearing.

The new system could assess old films which have ratings that do not match up with modern viewers’ tastes.

For example, Grease is currently rated a PG but contemporary audiences have pointed out it features some “disturbing” themes. Helen Barnard, director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, tweeted her “top six most disturbing parts of Grease” including a “jaunty number about a car enabling you to pressure girls to have sex”.

The 1969 Barbara Windsor classic Carry On Camping is also rated PG despite frequent sexual innuendo.

The original 1984 Ghostbusters was classed as PG, but parents might benefit from a description of scenes before watching it with their children. In 2011, the British Board of Film Classification changed its classification to 12A for moderate sex references.

Successfully developing the feature could give Amazon Prime Video a major advantage over rival Netflix if parents come to trust its age ratings. Amazon wrote in its patent filing that its own AI-generated ratings “represent more precise tools” compared with current human film ratings.

This new system could go beyond a simple age rating and instead show parents information such as individual ratings for the amount of violence, sex and profanity in a film or series.

It could also give people browsing for shows information on where sexual or violent content is within each episode so that they could be skipped if children are in the room. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2021)