In a bid to make users' experience safer and pleasant, AirBnB has recently claimed to have developed a software, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), to analyze guests' suitability by scanning their online activities and social media profiles.
Per an article by The Evening Standard, the global booking platform has come up with a "trait analyzer" software that will scour the internet to find out about a potential guests' online activities and gauge their compatibility and trustworthiness. Details reveal that the software will mark down people whose online activities are linked to drugs, alcoholism, prostitution or hate websites.
Airbnb revealed its intention to use the technology in a patent issued by the European Patent Office last year. Per the piece, the patent, which was published in the United States in 2019, states that the rental company could use its AI-powered technology to scan the web, including a person's social media accounts.
The software would analyze different personality traits to perceive users as untrustworthy. These include involvement in criminal activities and neuroticism as well as psychological traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy, among others. Akin to that, the technology would be able to find out if a user has fake social networking profiles or whether they have provided fabricated information about themselves.
According to the patent, the software would be able to carry out a deep internet search, so much so that news articles falling in the crime genre will also be scanned to discover if a user has committed any offenses.
That's not all, but the technology will also be able to assess how a user treats people outside of the cyber world by looking at their social connections, work history, as well as educational background.Under the "trust and safety" section of the website, AirBnB has stated that it uses "predictive analytics and machine learning to instantly evaluate hundreds of signals that help [the company] flag and investigate suspicious activity before it happens."
The website also states that while no screening could be flawless, the company does it best to carry out a background check of both the guests and the hosts against regulatory, terrorist, and sanctions watchlists.
Even though there is no surety that artificial intelligence can actually make predictions about individuals for being narcissists or psychopaths solely based on their online behavior and activities, AirBnB's decision to use such technology seems legit as it has been dealing with a plethora of complaints for many years.
Earlier last year, for instance, a Kensington woman who rented out her $3.3-million apartment for a "baby shower" had to face the shock of her life after hundreds of drug-fueled ravers wreaked havoc to her property, the Evening Standard article stated.
