Google announced twice in a matter of days that it’ll use machine learning (AI) to estimate a user’s age so it can restrict inappropriate content from children. That’s a great use of AI, as it could help companies like Google truly police content access so younger viewers can’t access content options that shouldn’t be available to them.
Google isn’t the only company doing it, with Meta making use of AI for similar purposes.
It’s all because of the increasing attention paid to online child safety in the US and the need to find ways to enforce it appropriately. If underage internet users can lie about their age to get access to content, which many will do, then tech companies can’t effectively prevent them from watching or reading content they shouldn’t.
Artificial intelligence can be the way to go, as it would be less prone to mistakes provided it’s trained accurately to determine an internet user’s age. But noble purposes aside, having companies like Google and Meta use AI to profile users is somewhat disturbing.
These are companies that already make billions by profiling internet users on a daily basis. They’ve done it without access to advanced AI models. Involving artificial intelligence in the process is what’s disturbing here.
The post Google using AI to determine the age of kids is useful but terrifying appeared first on BGR.
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Google using AI to determine the age of kids is useful but terrifying originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 13 Feb 2025 at 19:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.