YouTube's AI Age Verification System Falsely Restricts Adult Users

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YouTube's AI-powered age verification system, recently expanded in the U.S., is mistakenly classifying some adult users as minors. This malfunction restricts access to age-restricted content and requires affected users to undergo additional verification steps, causing inconvenience and raising concerns about user rights and privacy.[AI generated]

Why's our monitor labelling this an incident or hazard?

An AI system is explicitly involved as YouTube's AI-powered age verification. The AI's use is causing direct harm by falsely restricting users' access to content and features, which can be seen as a violation of user rights and harms the user experience. The harm is realized and ongoing, not just potential. Therefore, this qualifies as an AI Incident due to the direct impact on users' rights and access caused by the AI system's malfunction or misclassification.[AI generated]
AI principles
FairnessPrivacy & data governanceRespect of human rightsTransparency & explainabilityRobustness & digital securityAccountability
Industries
Media, social platforms, and marketing
Affected stakeholders
Consumers
Harm types
Human or fundamental rights
Business function:
Compliance and justice
AI system task:
Recognition/object detection

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