Week 3

Hello world,
Facebook Now Using Artificial Intelligence to Predict Teen Suicide. How could I possibly ignore that? With depression and suicide rates through the roof in my hometown and community, I am always seeking answers to this modern issue. Suicide is rarely a spur of the moment decision. It is something that ruminates for months or years before such a drastic step is taken. With today's teenagers practically living in the virtual world, there may certainly be patterns visible to the algorithms of google that no single person may be able to detect. This post talks about how this sort of monitoring is still in it's infancy, but in the future may detect nuances in language and how often people check in on a certain person as hints to something brewing in the dark mentality. It is controversial I think, because this creates ethical dilemmas of spying on people. At the same time, according to the article, the suicide rate for young women has tripled since 1990 and I can't imagine the grief of parents at discovering that their teenager has taken her own life.

On a happier note, this random name picker is a great tool to use in classrooms and is far more random than any manually created contraption I would make!