According to Reuters, Tom Siegel, founder of Google's Trust and Safety team, has called this week for slowing down AI development and warned that the tech industry is repeating the mistakes of the social media era, which could cause greater harm to children. Currently, social media companies are paying huge settlements and facing thousands of lawsuits over allegations of harming young users, while governments around the world are also trying to restrict minors' access to social platforms.
"We're in a very bad situation," the industry repeats its mistakes
Siegel previously served as vice president of Google Trust and Safety. He told Reuters, "In terms of the impact AI is having on children, we're in a very bad situation. The idea that the industry can solve these problems on its own without outside help is unrealistic." His concerns reflect the shared fears of many tech professionals and scholars: the threats AI poses to children are deeper than those from social media, and the industry is racing to add increasingly advanced features to chatbots, with millions of young people already using them daily.
This is not baseless. Reuters revealed last year an internal policy document from Meta, which stated that its chatbot could "engage in romantic or sexual conversations with children," leading to a congressional investigation; however, regulatory measures have still failed to keep up with the rapid development of AI. Siegel announced this week that he has joined Common Sense Media, a child cybersecurity advocacy organization. This nonprofit, founded in 2003, is dedicated to evaluating the appropriateness of media for children. In May, the organization established the Teen AI Safety Institute, and Siegel will serve as its first executive director. Anthropic and the non-profit OpenAI Foundation, which controls OpenAI, are among its supporters. He plans to establish standards to hold AI companies accountable and seek collaboration with businesses and third-party organizations.
Siegel worked at Google from 2004 to 2019, later leaving because he believed the industry had reached a "stagnation" in creating a safe online space, and co-founded the security startup TrustLab, which he recently stepped down as CEO. He pointed out that current AI companies are continuously launching new features for children without establishing sufficient protections. "We are facing a very, very serious risk of harm," he said. He listed risks ranging from suicide and mental breakdowns to "cognitive offloading"—a decline in critical thinking due to relying on AI to answer questions.
Calling for Age Verification, Google and OpenAI Respond
Siegel suggested that Anthropic and OpenAI could implement stricter age verification to prevent minors from using chatbots; his former employer, Google, could also add options to disable AI overviews and AI modes in search engines, similar to the current toggle for filtering explicit content. He added that these measures might temporarily affect usage and profits, but AI companies that fail to act will face lawsuits and regulatory risks, which could be more severe.
In response, a Google spokesperson said that parents can completely disable their children's access to the search engine through control features and emphasized that "AI search functions are a very useful way for children and teenagers to learn, explore, and understand the world." An OpenAI spokesperson said that in addition to users self-reporting their age, the company also uses "account and behavioral signals" to identify underage users. "Although no single method of age verification is perfect, we will continue to test and improve these systems, including preventing attempts to bypass safety measures."
