Whether you’re a grown man who’s just really into Pokémon content or a little kid arguing with said grown man in the comments section of a YouTube video (filmed by a teenage girl), YouTube wants to know a little more about you. Primarily, your age. Regardless of what you’ve told Google, the platform will deploy an AI-powered ‘age estimation model’ to better determine your age.
Making YouTube worse, one AI-powered tool at a time
Google first announced its plans to do this using machine learning earlier this year, and it’s finally following through. Judging by a “variety of signals,” like how long an account has been around for, and the sort of activity it engages in, YouTube reckons it can accurately determine your age.
Should it deem your account belongs to someone under 18, new restrictions will automatically be put in place for your safety — whether or not that’s even the case.
These include the current restrictions for those account owners who willingly tell Google that they are still a child. Non-personalised ads, and “digital wellbeing tools” like bedtime reminders or a pop-up telling you to take a break seem harmless. But YouTube minimising “recommendations of videos with content that could be problematic if viewed in repetition” is certainly a choice.
On paper, the idea is… fine. We’d imagine that guardians who don’t feel adequately equipped to police their child’s internet habits still don’t want their child shown content made for adults, or lying about their age to get it. In that case, those folks would likely prefer the new rules to be put in place for them.
It’s a major step forward, and not one we see ending well. It’s a short step from YouTube using the technology as a security precaution to it becoming an overarching surveillance and censorship tool.
Read More: YouTube punishes its Premium subscribers with, you guessed it: even more AI
The changes will even be implemented into the platform’s analytics for creators. Currently, the system uses the provided age of users to determine proper impressions, but YouTube says it is working on updating this to reflect what age the algorithm thinks a creator’s audience is. But wait, it gets worse. Google notes that some creators may experience a hit to their ad revenue:
“Some creators may experience a shift in their audience categorized as teens (under 18). This may result in a decrease in ad revenue since we only serve non-personalized ads to those viewers. We estimate this will have limited impact for most creators. We’re committed to supporting creators and as always, we’re investing in new solutions to help give creators more ways to grow their community and make money on YouTube.”
“We’ve used this approach in other markets for some time, where it is working well and we are now gradually rolling it out to the US,” YouTube said, failing to identify which other countries are involved. From this, we can gather that the tool is likely heading elsewhere and will probably arrive in SA eventually.
