YouTube Asks AI to Estimate Users' Ages
YouTube will use AI to estimate U.S. users’ ages starting Aug. 13, the Google company said Tuesday.
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“Over the next few weeks, we’ll begin to roll out machine learning to a small set of users in the US to estimate their age, so that teens are treated as teens and adults as adults,” blogged James Beser, YouTube Youth director of product management. “We’ll closely monitor this before we roll it out more widely.”
Beser said the company “will use AI to interpret a variety of signals that help us to determine whether a user is over or under 18. These signals include the types of videos a user is searching for, the categories of videos they have watched, or the longevity of the account.”
Age estimation “will happen regardless of the birthdate you entered when creating your account,” YouTube said on a support page. “We’ll then use that to extend age-appropriate product experiences and protections to more teens (like enabling digital wellbeing tools and only showing non-personalized ads).”
It’s not totally new, Beser said. “We’ve used this approach in other markets for some time, where it is working well. We are now bringing it to the US, and as we make progress we’ll roll it out in other markets."