Yesterday, I wrote about how YouTube is now using AI to guess your age. The idea is this: Rather than rely on the age attached to your account, YouTube analyzes your activity on its platform, and makes a determination based on how your activity corresponds to others users. If the AI thinks you’re an adult, you can continue on; if it thinks your behavior aligns with that of a teenage user, it’ll put restrictions and protections on your account.
Now, Google is expanding its AI age verification tools beyond just its video streaming platform, to other Google products as well. As with YouTube, Google is trialing this initial rollout with a small pool of users, and based on its results, will expand the test to more users down the line. But over the next few weeks, your Google Account may be subject to this new AI, whose only goal is to estimate how old you are.
That AI is trained to look for patterns of behavior across Google products associated with users under the age of 18. That includes the categories of information you might be searching for, or the types of videos you watch on YouTube. Google’s a little cagey on the details, but suffice it to say that the AI is likely snooping through most, if not all, of what you use Google and its products for.
Restrictions and protections on teen Google accounts
We do know some of the restrictions and protections Google plans to implement when it detects a user is under 18 years old. As I reported yesterday, that involves turning on YouTube’s Digital Wellbeing tools, such as reminders to stop watching videos, and, if it’s late, encouragements to go to bed. YouTube will also limit repetitive views of certain types of content.
In addition to these changes to YouTube, you’ll also find you can no longer access Timeline in Maps. Timeline saves your Google Maps history, so you can effectively travel back through time and see where you’ve been. It’s a cool feature, but Google restricts access to users 18 years of age or older. So, if the AI detects you’re underage, no Timeline for you.
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Source: Google Is Rolling Out Its AI Age Verification to More Services, and I’m Skeptical
Of course there is no mention of how to ask for recourse if the AI gets it wrong.
Robin Edgar
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