After honoring our veterans this past Veteran’s Day, it is also important to shed light on various ways to help ensure that Veterans and others with mental illnesses can receive the care that they may need for scars both visible and invisible.  Sadly, one of the most affected groups of suicide are veterans with an average of 20 Veterans passing away each day due to suicide, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. As written in a previous SIIA AI Spotlight, in the United States, suicide is ranked as the third leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 14, second among people ages 15 to 24, fourth among people ages 35-54, and tenth overall according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  One such tool that may aid in the field of suicide prevention is, unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Harvard University developed a machine learning algorithm that, when paired ...

Suicide is ranked as the third leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 14 and second among people ages 15 to 24 according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  Obviously, suicide and depression are a serious problem facing society. People who are contemplating suicide often feel helpless and reach out, but hearing and acting on cries for help doesn’t always happen in time. Tragically, many people who have struggled with depression and/or suicidal thoughts have used social media to post notes about their intentions to take their own lives or even live stream their suicides. In response, Facebook announced a few months ago that it would be taking more initiative in using its platform for social good.  One of Facebook’s tools to aide with suicide prevention is artificial intelligence. Facebook has developed algorithms that recognize patterns in user’s posts to flag them in case they are at risk of committing suicide.  Critics hav ...