The globally popular Call of Duty franchise is jumping into the murky waters of voice chat censorship that relies on AI technology. Activision, the company behind the franchise, revealed a unique partnership with AI technocrat Modulate, aimed at curbing the toxicity associated with in-game chatter.
This rigorous approach will see the integration of Modulate’s proprietary voice moderation tool, ToxMod, into Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2 and the highly anticipated Modern Warfare 3.
While the pro-censorship brigade may welcome this news, ardent defenders of free speech will find this controversial, possibly seeing it as yet another example of Big Tech tightening its digital leash. They could argue that applying such AI censorship could erode the spirit of free speech, allowing Big Tech to manipulate and monitor its users.
ToxMod, which embarks on its beta testing journey this week, allegedly has the ability to infer and monitor “toxic speech,” an umbrella term Activision uses to describe so-called hate speech, harassment, and a a lot of discriminatory language. .