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The Data Scientist

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Here is How Facebook Uses AI

Social media has totally transformed the way we interact with people. You can connect to just any person with a click, without knowing or being geographically close to him. Well, the purpose of social media, in essence, is social networking. It allows you to interact and exchange ideas with millions of people freely, without being perceived as indecorous.

Of all, Facebook is the most prominent social media platform to revolutionize people’s interactions. Facebook boasts millions of users monthly and beats other social media platforms hands down. Given that 72% of total Facebook’s active users are outside the West, it is true that in the developing world, Facebook is the internet.

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Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive officer of Facebook Inc., speaks during the Facebook F8 Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 12, 2016. Zuckerberg outlined a 10-year plan to alter the way people interact with each other and the brands that keep advertising dollars rolling at the world’s largest social network. Photographer: Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In the regions, where people do not have access to reliable internet, Facebook offers free data by partnering with mobile companies to fill the internet gap. This is the core reason why Facebook has users, just in every corner of the world.

But thankfully, if you live in the US, you have a long list of reliable internet options, which allow you to not only use Facebook and other social media sites but complete high-bandwidth tasks efficiently. One such type is Spectrum, a well-known name across the country. Browse through Spectrum en español to find out exclusive internet options for Spanish customers only.

Anyway, coming back to Facebook’s fight and scramble, we know that it is ahead of others with an ever-growing user base. But this article is not supposed to brag about Facebook’s users. The twist in the story is how Facebook is engaging customers.

As millions of people log in to their accounts and scroll through their feeds, Facebook scoops in data. This data is used by the AI mechanism to provide users with a customized experience on their respective portals.

In short, Facebook builds its business by obtaining information about the users and packaging the data for advertisers. So, if you want to learn how Facebook is using AI, then stay tuned till the end, as we will explore some key findings.

Ways Facebook is Using AI

Facebook is one of the fastly mushrooming social media sites, which has to battle it out every minute to sustain its position. Therefore, it uses advanced technology and tools, like AI to evolve and meet customer’s needs.

1. Textual Analysis

While Facebook is popular for sharing pictures and photos, a large proportion of data is still text. From expressing personal opinions to captions on posts, there is a huge volume of textual data on Facebook. Therefore, Facebook needs to interpret the textual content to comprehend the meaning and context.

In that regard, Facebook uses a tool developed by itself called DeepText. This tool allows Facebook to process the text and extract the meaning by analyzing it contextually. It is taught to analyze words in a context.

For example, if two people are taking over Messenger and planning to go out, Facebook interprets that they want to visit a place. Therefore, Facebook will show them suggestions to book a ride, choose a location, etc.

Also, it can analyze Facebook posts to suggest solutions. For example, if you are posting something like, “Selling my PS5,” then Facebook will analyze the text and suggest platforms where you can sell your gaming equipment.

2. DeepFakes Detection

Facebook uses a tool called DeepFace to teach it to detect people. It is considered a powerful tool, even more potent than humans to identify if two images are of the same person or not. While humans have 96% accuracy in face detection, DeepFace has 97%.

Deepfakes are increasingly becoming a problem on Facebook. Deepfakes are videos that are altered through AI, which look extremely close to reality that it becomes hard to identify if it is true or formulated. However, Facebook can determine the difference between Deepfakes and real videos.

3. Targeted Advertising

You might have found it astonishing that you were just thinking about buying a car and you see the ads for vehicles on Facebook, right? Well, this is Facebook magic (Pun intended). Every time you are on Facebook, you are constantly feeding it data.

No matter, if you write or post pictures and videos or not, the impression on posts, your likes, and time spent on posts, all are key matrices to get insights and package data for advertisers.

4. Helping Visually Impaired Users

With the help of AI and deep learning, Facebook engineers are creating photos that talk to help visually impaired users to know what is on their feeds.

5. Prevent Troubles

When people put up posts and engage with alarming content, Facebook can understand that they are in trouble and generates alerts. If someone has suicidal thoughts, they may engage with content that signifies they are not mentally well. In that case, Facebook can help prevent such incidents.

Conclusion

Facebook works by obtaining data and interpreting it to improve users’ experience on the platform. For that, it uses advanced technology, such as AI which is a powerful technology that helps Facebook with face recognition, textual analysis, targeted advertising, and more.