Justice
How AI Could Slow the Spread of HIV
A pilot program in Los Angeles is testing a more scientific way to reach “influencers” who persuade and educate their peers.
While out with friends in Los Angeles last Spring, Cody Woods found himself sharing what he learned about ways to avoid contracting HIV. A few weeks earlier, he had been immersed in another discussion on Facebook about sexually transmitted diseases, this time correcting something a friend had posted about Hepatitis B transmission.
“I remember one of my friends posting [on Facebook] about Hep B and that you can get it through making out with someone,” says Woods, 22. “I commented that ‘actually it can’t be transmitted that way,’ and I explained a bit more about what I had learned.”