In May 2021, Twitter, a platform known for abuse and temper tantrums, has launched a “Reminder” feature that suggests users think twice before sending a tweet. Next month, Facebook announced AI “conflict alerts” for groups, so admins can take action when there may be “controversial or unhealthy conversations.” Email and smart text replies end up billions of sentences for us every day. Amazon’s Halo, coming out in 2020, is a fitness band that tracks the tunes of your voice. Health is no longer just about monitoring heart rate or counting steps, but about how we interact with those around us. Algorithmic therapy tools are being developed to predict and prevent negative behavior.
Jeff Hancock, a professor of communications at Stanford University, defines AI-mediated communication as “when an intelligent agent acts on behalf of the communicator by modifying, supplementing, or crafting messages to accomplish communication goals”. The technology has already been deployed on a large scale, he said.
Underneath it all is a growing belief that our relationships are just a push to perfection. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many of our relationships have depended on computer-mediated channels. In the midst of a chaotic ocean of online messaging, malicious Slack messages, and infinite Zoom, can algorithms help us get better together? Can an app read our emotions better than we can? Or could outsourcing our communications to AI take away what makes human relationships?
Coding Co-Parenting
You can say that Jai Kissoon grew up in the family court system. Or, at least, around it. His mother, Kathleen Kissoon, was a family attorney, and when he was a teenager, he went to her office in Minneapolis, Minnesota and helped collate documents. This was a time before “fancy copying machines,” and as Kissoon flipped through the endless piles of paper that flew through the corridors of a law firm, he overheard stories of many How families can fall apart.
In that sense, not much has changed for Kissoon, who co-founded OurFamilyWizard, a communication and scheduling tool for divorced and co-parenting couples that launched in 2001. was Kathleen’s concept, while Jai developed the business plan, initially launching OurFamilyWizard as a website. It quickly caught the attention of those working in the legal system, including Judge James Swenson, who ran a pilot program with the platform in family court in Hennepin County, Minneapolis, in 2003. The project took 40 of what Kissoon said were “most difficult families,” established them on the foundation — and “they disappeared from the court system.” When someone finally has to go to court — two years later — it’s after parents stop using it.
Two decades on, OurFamilyWizard has been used by about a million people and received court approval across the United States. In 2015, it launched in the UK and a year later in Australia. It is now available in 75 countries; Similar products include coParenter, Cozi, Amicable and TalkingParents. Brian Karpf, secretary of the American Bar Association, Family Law Division, says that many attorneys now recommend co-parenting apps as a standard method, especially when they want a ” chilling effect” on a couple’s communication. These apps can be a deterrent to harassment, and their use in communication may be required by a court of law.
