March 12, 2025
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AI chatbot helps victims of digital sexual violence in Latin America
Two girls from Mexico and Ecuador who spent years combating to be acknowledged as victims of on-line sexual violence have impressed a man-made intelligence chatbot that helps others dealing with abuse.
OlimpIA, which was developed in Mexico, supplies authorized recommendation and emotional assist by way of the WhatsApp messaging platform utilizing a number of dozen languages.
It was born from the experiences greater than a decade in the past of Olimpia Coral and Isabella Nuques, each now 30, earlier than that they had met.
An intimate video of Coral was shared with out her consent in 2013, and when she tried to report it to Mexican authorities they knowledgeable her that there was little they might do to assist.
"They instructed us that nothing might be finished about this violence as a result of it was digital, and the digital wasn't actual," she stated in the course of the first Latin American Summit of Digital Girls Defenders, held not too long ago in Mexico.
The identical 12 months, in Ecuador, specific pictures of Nuques had been printed on social media.
She felt not solely powerless but additionally violated once more when the police officer she reported it to confirmed a sexual curiosity within the photos, the communications knowledgeable instructed AFP throughout the identical occasion.
Authorized advances
The 2 girls started combating for digital sexual abuse to be acknowledged as against the law of their international locations, each with success.
In 2018, a reform was handed to punish digital violence in Coral's house state of Puebla in central Mexico.
A legislation named after her took impact in 2021 throughout Mexico—the place round 10 girls are murdered day by day on common—placing offenders liable to as much as six years in jail.
That very same 12 months, Nuques celebrated the approval by Ecuador's Nationwide Meeting of a digital violence legislation that gives for sentences of as much as 16 years in jail.
Argentina, Chile and Panama have adopted laws much like that of Mexico, whereas half a dozen extra Latin American international locations are shifting in the identical course.
Based on the United Nations, 38 p.c of girls worldwide have skilled digital violence, though the precise quantity could also be increased.
In 2013, Coral based a gaggle of activists who started offering recommendation to victims.
The know-how firm AuraChat.Ai later grew to become concerned with her challenge, and final September they launched OlimpIA, rising their capability from 100 to greater than 1,300 consultations a month.
Since then, the platform has dealt with greater than 8,000 instances, most of them in Mexico, but additionally in Spain, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, Panama, Guatemala and Peru, tailoring the recommendation to every nation, stated Fernanda Medellin, co-founder of the chatbot.
The Ley Olimpia AI initiative was acknowledged as one of many 50 most modern initiatives on the Synthetic Intelligence Motion Summit in Paris in February.
Specialist focus
In contrast to different AI chatbots like ChatGPT that collect details about numerous matters, OlimpIA focuses on the difficulty of digital sexual violence.
Psychologists, attorneys and different specialists collaborated for months to coach it with particular enter and a language that imitates a form human voice.
"Some fashions (utilized by OlimpIA) act as attorneys, others as digital defenders, or as psychologists. Others act as safety filters that detect dangers for the sufferer, or as emotional radars that analyze textual content and audio to grasp their emotional state," stated Enrique Partida, co-founder and CEO of AuraChat.Ai.
One psychologist helped the chatbot to supply methods to cope with anxiousness crises or panic assaults—frequent signs amongst victims.
Whereas most of its customers are girls, it can be utilized by males.
Related initiatives have been developed in international locations like South Africa, the place the chatbot Zuzi supplies assist in instances of bodily or sexual abuse with options together with an emergency button and proof storage.
The builders of OlimpIA need the following model to be accessible even with out an web connection, so it’s accessible by way of cellphone calls in distant areas.
There are additionally plans to combine signal language and Indigenous languages sooner or later, stated Edith Contla, director of technique at AuraChat.Ai.
It is usually hoped that the platform will function a hyperlink for customers with police and different officers, lowering the danger of them being abused once more.
© 2025 AFP
Quotation: AI chatbot helps victims of digital sexual violence in Latin America (2025, March 12) retrieved 12 March 2025 from https://techxplore.com/information/2025-03-ai-chatbot-victims-digital-sexual.html This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any honest dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is supplied for data functions solely.
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