AI gives potential suicides pause for thought

Inspiration

Huang said, "Saving lives is our top priority." That is the motivation behind his volunteer group, called the Tree Hole Rescue Team.

The name was inspired by a Chinese fairy tale in which a person divulged a secret to a hole in a tree and then sealed the hole to ensure his words remained secret forever.

Now, the phrase "tree hole" has another meaning－strangers can express their deepest thoughts anonymously on online platforms, such as websites, bulletin boards or social media.

The Sina Weibo accounts of deceased people, especially those who died recently from the coronavirus, have also become "tree holes" in which posters express negative feelings and even issue death threats. Others use their own accounts to voice suicidal thoughts, openly or via veiled references.

The Tree Hole group is an extension of research Huang started in 2010 on the application of AI technology to mental health.

"I worked with Beijing Anding Hospital to study depression and AI. Many people with depression are unwilling to tell anyone, especially their families or bosses, because they are afraid of the stigma," he said.

Taking advantage of internet anonymity, people with suicidal thoughts often search online for ways to cure depression, meaning they often miss the optimum treatment time. As the condition worsens, their thoughts can turn to suicide, Huang said.

He founded his team in 2018, looking to use AI technology to help people with suicidal feelings by establishing an expert team to search for such thoughts in social media posts.

Intelligent Agent began operating on July 25 that year. The next day, it produced its first report, listing the time and content that suggested suicidal thoughts and providing a link to the person's social media account.

Huang grades the risk level from zero to 10. Zero signifies "No expressions to indicate a painful existence", while 10 indicates "Suicidal actions may be in progress".

"The program has been updated to its sixth generation, and the accuracy of the information obtained has risen from 75 percent to 82," he said.

"Initially, it provided a report once a day, but now the frequency can be once every six hours, with 50 to 60 pieces of information."

Huang said the program has become more subtle, and can now report on level 5 indications, in which a person may make veiled references to suicide. Initially, it could only work on level 7 and higher, which required more overt information. Now, it is also able to establish the gender of the person at risk.

The rescue team has 600 members. Three hundred are qualified mental health professionals, including 100 from the fields of psychiatry and psychology, while the rest are interns learning to deal with lower-risk cases.

"The difference between us and rescue hotlines is that we actively search for suicidal people, while they wait for people to approach them for help," Huang said.

He added that he has refused an offer from a company that wanted to buy his AI technology for use in profit-generating applications.

"Everyone involved in the rescue work is unpaid. It is just a group of people volunteering to help others unconditionally, which reflects a positive aspect of society," he said.

On Jan 14, the Beijing Abundance Foundation, an NGO that focuses on the mental health of people ages 6 to 16, stepped in to help with the rescue group's management and to support its lifesaving mission.