  Voice-based discussion forums where users can record audio messages which are
then published for other users to listen and comment, are often moderated to
ensure that the published audios are of good quality, relevant, and adhere to
editorial guidelines of the forum. There is room for the introduction of
AI-based tools in the moderation process, such as to identify and filter out
blank or noisy audios, use speech recognition to transcribe the voice messages
in text, and use natural language processing techniques to extract relevant
metadata from the audio transcripts. We design such tools and deploy them
within a social enterprise working in India that runs several voice-based
discussion forums. We present our findings in terms of the time and
cost-savings made through the introduction of these tools, and describe the
feedback of the moderators towards the acceptability of AI-based automation in
their workflow. Our work forms a case-study in the use of AI for automation of
several routine tasks, and can be especially relevant for other researchers and
practitioners involved with the use of voice-based technologies in developing
regions of the world.
