Google is using AI to better detect searches from people in crisis

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In a personal crisis, many people turn to an impersonal source of support: Google. Every day, the company fields searches on topics like suicide, sexual assault, and domestic abuse. But Google wants to do more to direct people to the information they need, and says new AI techniques that better parse the complexities of language are helping.

Specifically, Google is integrating its latest machine learning model, MUM, into its search engine to more accurately detect a wider range of personal crisis searches." The company unveiled MUM at its IO conference last year, and has since used it to augment search with features that try to answer questions connected to the original search.

In this case, MUM will be able to spot search queries...

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