Roblox launches real-time AI chat rewording to filter out banned language

Roblox is introducing a real-time, AI-powered chat rewording feature that automatically replaces banned words with more respectful language, according to the company was announced on Thursday.

The new feature goes beyond Roblox’s current text filter, which simply replaces banned words and phrases with the ‘#’ symbol. But Roblox says that when users encounter strings of “####,” conversations can become garbled and hard to follow.

Now, instead of just displaying hash marks, the filtered text will be reformulated into a more respectful language that is close to the user’s original intent.

For example, a message that says “Hurry TF up!” it would previously appear as “####” but will now be reworded to “Hurry!” Everyone in the chat is notified that the message has been reworded to keep the chat civil, Roblox says.

“Chat is central to how people connect, coordinate and play on Roblox,” said Rajiv Bhatia, Roblox’s vice president of User and Product Discovery, in a press release. “Real-time rewording helps keep gameplay and conversations on track while guiding language toward what’s appropriate. This approach reduces chat friction while maintaining the standards that help keep our community civil.”

Roblox notes that while the rewording reduces some of the disruption to chat, its security system remains in place for more serious behavior.

The new feature is supported in all languages ​​currently available through Roblox’s automatic translation tools.

The company is also upgrading its text filtering system to detect more variations of banned language. Roblox says early results show the system is getting better at detection Leetspeakand more sophisticated attempts to bypass filters. This allowed the company to reduce by 20 times the prevalence of false negatives when sharing or searching for personal information.

Thursday’s announcement comes shortly after Roblox introduced mandatory face verification to access chats on its platform following a wave of child safety lawsuits from Texas attorneys general. Kentuckyand Louisiana, among others. The lawsuits were filed in response to reports that Roblox exposed young users to dangerous risks such as grooming and explicit content.