Blizzard is training AI to fight toxicity in Overwatch

Overwatch is one of the most successful games of Blizzard, that is without a doubt, and thanks to that, the game owns a huge community. However, a large community will always come with various inadequacies, and prominent among them, is “toxic”. If you don’t know, it can be understood that “toxic” is a word used to refer to people who are unpleasant, like to criticize and curse from teammates to opponents. In Overwatch, “toxic” is not only harsh words, but also includes using skills to harm your own teammates. In general, such people appear only to destroy other people’s joy
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Blizzard has always taken this matter seriously. At the moment, players have the option to report such guys to the game’s customer service. However, each time these reports are received, the company’s staff will have to check the match chat-log to confirm if it is true, before the penalty can be enforced. Imagine how many such reports are submitted each day, and how many of them are accurate… All in all, this is undoubtedly one of the most grueling and demanding tasks for employees. by Blizzard.
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Currently, Blizzard’s violation reporting system is still operating relatively effectively. With improvements not too long ago, the percentage of players using extreme language to attack others has decreased to 17%. The problem with the current system, however, is that it cannot immediately punish violators. Everything will change in the near future, when Blizzard has decided to go a step further in the fight against “toxic” in its pet game:

“We are experimenting with training AIs”_ Jeff Kaplan, the creator of the game, shared_ “We are teaching our game how to recognize words as words. toxic. It’s an interesting job. If it’s successful, players won’t have to wait to report the spoilers anymore.”
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Obviously, this “teaching” job is not easy. For us humans, it will not be difficult to discern what is a harmless joke and what is a harsh word of criticism. With AI, it’s much more difficult. Everything would be a nightmare, if Blizzard’s AI system would ban players just for a joke with friends. However, if successful, then it is definitely a new breakthrough, not only for Overwatch or Blizzard, but also for the gaming industry in general.​

In the virtual world of online games, there are always people who like to hide behind the computer screen to express their ego in a bluff. They think that this is both an expression of individuality or freedom, but in fact these are actions that cause extremely negative effects on others. If this anti-toxic AI system is widely disseminated, the number of such people will certainly decrease, and the online gaming environment will obviously become much “fresher”.
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