Google Will Use Machine Learning To Estimate a User's Age

Google will soon use machine learning to estimate the age of its users. From a report: In an update on Wednesday, Google said it's testing a machine learning model in the US to help determine whether someone is under 18, allowing it to "provide more age-appropriate experiences" across its platforms. The age estimation model will use existing data about users, including the sites they visit, what kinds of videos they watch on YouTube, and how long they've had an account to determine their age.

AI

[beefoot]

Let me ask my AI to generate a list of websites to visit and the type of videos to watch to fool google's age estimation system.

time to make a new google account

[Anonymous Coward]

and browse nothing but children's sites... and 4chan. what could go wrong?

Google Account Required?

[Thunderstruck]

It's hard to tell from the fantastic article, or the original Google post. Does this AI filter apply to all users, or just to users with a Google account? Is this specific to Android ND Chrome devices, or anything connecting to a Google service?

Re:

[Mononymous]

Google never gives clear answers as to which of these creepy things they do get applied to someone using their services without an account.

how long they've had an account

[rossdee]

But a google account is a throw-away account...

Good luck with that

[dargaud]

Between my kid who reads Sophocle on Kindle and knitting videos at 11, me who watches stupid memes like a teen and gramp who watches sport, good luck with that method !

Re:Good luck with that

[ebunga]

Yeah, but your ad profile goes back 24 years, so you're probably an adult.

Re:

[aitikin]

Or the 6 digit UID tells us that, too.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The interesting part with statistical methods (and in extension AI) on big data is, that it detects features that are less clear than that. You think the filter must correlate to these things. An AI model trained on data as big as Google has, may find much more reliable features, which doesn't seem to make much sense to us, but are more robust.

Re:

[BeaverCleaver]

The interesting part with statistical methods (and in extension AI) on big data is, that it detects features that are less clear than that. You think the filter must correlate to these things. An AI model trained on data as big as Google has, may find much more reliable features, which doesn't seem to make much sense to us, but are more robust.

I know I shouldn't reply to an AC, but this is bullshit. Google can't even summarise a document properly. GMail can't even filter spam that originates from a GMail address. Stop promoting this notion that Google is smarter than we are. They do have a lot of data, and there are occasional uncanny patterns observed from the mound of data. But suggesting that the AI is just too clever to make sense to mere humans like us? Come on.

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Gmail doesn't filter spam from a GMAIL address because it has little incentive to. Like with 10% less spam you'd be more likely to do what that would earn them money?

This is a feature that will allow them to better target you with ads, which will allow them to charge more for the ads. They are heavily incentivized to do this change, and not the email spam improvement.

Re:

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Google shuttered their Usenet service - inherited from Deja News - a year ago, citing it as obsolete.
Before that they had been tolerating a D-O-S attack on Usenet with hundreds of thousands of Thai-language spam postings a week, all entered via Google. It got to the stage where people were filtering all Google Groups messages out. They just did not f****** care.
You'd have thought that a Search Engine company would have shuttered posting via Google Groups - and maybe then cleaned up their database to remov

Re:

[jenningsthecat]

Between my kid who reads Sophocle on Kindle and knitting videos at 11, me who watches stupid memes like a teen and gramp who watches sport, good luck with that method !

Are all of you using the same device? If not, then Google's probably got all three of you pegged. Even if you are all using one device, it's still likely that the Goo-meisters know with a pretty high degree of certainty which user is using that device at any given time, and what your approximate ages are. They've been doing this kind of stuff for a long time, and I hear that they're very good at it.

Re:

[The-Ixian]

All using the same account?

Privacy nightmare

[Petr Blazek]

clearly an effort to legitimize surveillance...

This is about forcing tracking

[sinij]

To me, Google is trying to add more roadblocks for people that do not want to be tracked by Google by falsely declaring them minors and intentionally degrading their online experience. Just like they previously tried with constant captcha spam, just like they falsely blocked people from Gmail "for your own security". It is more of the same, only now with a dose of "think of the children".

Google is evil.

Political Lip service? No new features?

[TheWho79]

Google already knows the age of 99% of their users. Using ai to guess their age is nothing but lip service to the right (who are barn storming state houses to restrict content like Texas did requiring minors to be verified).

If they want to protect kids, give parents the ability to turn off YouTube Shorts. They can be vulgar, offensive, suggestive, and inappropriate for young minds. YouTube kids is far too restrictive for tweens.

Anecdote

[sinij]

The last straw for me before I purged Google entirely from my life was when they demanded to see ID from me to prove that I was over 14 years old. Thing is, I was early invite into Gmail, so my account at that point was older than 14 years.

Re:

[BeaverCleaver]

The last straw for me before I purged Google entirely from my life was when they demanded to see ID from me to prove that I was over 14 years old. Thing is, I was early invite into Gmail, so my account at that point was older than 14 years.

Of course it is obvious that you are over 18. But if they can get your ID in addition to 14 years of email to mine, why wouldn't they?

You don't need AI for this

[yog]

There are several websites that provide someone's age, or at least their birth year. The data has been publicly available for years.

The only innovation Google brings is to estimate age based on someone's search patterns, but even that doesn't require "AI". A simple set of rules would suffice.
 

Re:

[Alumoi]

Real DOB? Are you nuts?

revenge of the nerds

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

I love how things designed to fuck you are spun out as beneficial.
This is the "think of the children" argument.

Merely another brick in the wall of surveillance. We are well past the point of no return.

Re:

[dfghjk]

Came here to say this!

Re:

[nightflameauto]

"How do we maximize the amount of fuck potential we can fully inflict on people?"

"People like to be fucked. Just do it. And claim it's for their benefit. Tell 'em to think about children. I know I like thinking about children while I'm being fucked."

"God damn it, Bob. We're not supposed to talk about that in company meetings!"

"Oh. Right. Um, maybe just don't mention being fucked while thinking of the children?"

"That might work. Let's try it."

counting the cars on the Veracruz turnpike

[Pseudonymous Powers]

Google Maps apparently thinks I'm a toddler, because these maps it's showing me something called the "Gulf of America".

Re:

[jfdavis668]

We should have compromised and named it the "Gulf of New Mexico"

Choice

[RitchCraft]

I know this hard for some to understand. Don't ... use ... Google ... anything.

Re:

[BeaverCleaver]

Amen to that.

Re:

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Android? I'm not about to join the Cult of Apple and can't see anything in the way of alternatives.
Samsung are pretty much the anti-Google on that front, they use Android but supply alternatives for most of the Apps. Some of them are even decent.

Minors and Republicans don't know math, history...

[gavron]

All they have to do is have CAPTCHA-style questions about science, math, history, or ethics.
Minors will fail at some percentage of these. Republicans will fail them all.

Re:

[XXongo]

or ask them a CAPTCHA-style question about whether ohio rizz is skibidi or totally sus. If their response is WTF? then they're old.

So parents who stream "Baby Shark"

[jfdavis668]

for their toddlers will not be allowed to search for adult content.

privacy

[RegistrationIsDumb83]

I've already been locked out of one google account when they demanded my phone number. This will definitely be an excuse to lock and claw more pii out of people. This post is a good reminder to minimize use of Gmail in case it gets locked again.

Hmmmm.

[jd]

User: jd
Estimated age: 297i + 597j + 127k
Conclusion: User is extremely imaginary and possibly a Time Lord.