How does one detect if another person has suicidal thoughts or tendencies? There are many ways to go about it, although sometimes as humans ourselves, we might be too busy or engrossed with our own lives to tell if someone else is suffering. This is why there have been tools built to help with detection.
In fact recently it seems that researchers have managed to develop an algorithm that is apparently capable of detecting suicidal thoughts based on a person’s brain scan. The team discovered that based on fMRI scans, certain keywords trigger activity in different parts of the brain depending on whether or not they feel suicidal. Based on this discovery, they built an algorithm that measures overall brain activity and determine when activity in suicide-linked regions is particularly strong.
So far it seems that the system that they’ve built is 91% accurate, although according to Dr. Marcel Just, he tells The Methods Man that this isn’t necessarily a guarantee. This is because so far in their tests, all subjects have been volunteers which means that in a real-world scenario, whether or not a suicidal person will actually confess their feelings is another story.
However we suppose it is better to be safe than sorry, and reaching out to someone who may or may not be in need isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Like we said, tools have been built to try and address suicide, such as Facebook who earlier this year launched an AI tool that would attempt to flag/identify users who might be suicidal based on their posts.
Filed in . Read more about AI (Artificial Intelligence), Health and Science.