Swetha Revanur • Tackling Human Trafficking with AI

(Computer Science BS Student, Stanford University || CA USA)

“I’ve always liked projects that are meaningful. Originally, I wanted to go into medicine — I wanted to be able to touch people’s lives and make an impact at a high scale. But when you’re 13, that’s difficult — no one is going to let you into the operating theater! So I had to find another way. That’s when I discovered computer science. Last year I found this article by the New York Times about police busting a human trafficking circle in LA. I dug deeper, and learned that a huge percentage of sex trafficking happens through backpage.com, which is now closed down. All this information on human trafficking is public and digital — my friend and I thought there must be a way to stop this by using technology. We developed semi-supervised deep neural networks that were able to find trafficking posts with around 80% accuracy. We want to improve these networks even more, and equip law enforcement with a suite of tools to identify and stop human trafficking.

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I think in tech today, lots of people lose sight of how their work can impact people, in both good and bad ways. At every step of what we’re doing, I think we need to be aware of how our work impacts the world around us.”