It’s a common concern bemoaned by parents all over the world: what are the kids really up to when they’re online? It’s bad enough that the younger generation is usually more tech-savvy than their elders, but even the most hawk-eyed parent can’t watch what their kids are watching 24/7. To allay those fears, Meta has announced that it intends to use AI on its platforms as a way to age-verify its users; the idea sounds noble on the surface, but a deeper dive opens a Pandora’s Box of concerns, ranging from invasion of privacy to worries over content. Rich DeMuro is the host of “Rich on Tech,” heard Sunday nights at 8pm on WOR; he appeared on 710 WOR’s Curtis Sliwa and Larry Mendte in the Morning program to explain not only how the AI-as-enforcer system works, but also why the sudden interest in protecting kids- and, perhaps more importantly, what the end-game is for companies like Meta.
Larry asked Rich about Meta’s recent interest in trying to spot underage users, which he immediately pointed out is meant to serve an ulterior motive: “You know, the last thing these companies want is any sort of formal regulation, right? That’s really what they’re up against, so they keep coming out and saying, ‘Yes, we’re doing something to try and make sure kids are safe on our platforms,’ when the reality is they want as many users as possible. Do they really care about their ages? Probably not… so they are trying, but they’re saying, ‘Look, we’re using AI, but this is not facial recognition. We’re not making a log of every kid ever on Facebook or Instagram’.”
Rich also chided Curtis in astonishment for admitting that he was clinging to a stubborn survivor of the internet’s early days- the recently shuttered website feature known as “Ask Jeeves”: “You’ve got to switch to something more modern… Ask Jeeves, which was Ask.com, has formally shut down on May 1st. It is over after thirty years, and here’s what was so ironic about this: Ask.com, when it first came out- I remember the day- it was so revolutionary because their whole pitch was that you could ask questions and get answers. The problem was the answers were not very good, and they were never very good, even at the beginning.”
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