10 ms·

Our approach to age prediction

127 points by pretext 9mo ago

lpcvoid 9mo ago
>young people deserve technology that both expands opportunity and protects their well-being. Then maybe OpenAI should just close shop, since (SaaS) LLMs do neither in the mid to long term.
twelvechairs 9mo ago
"it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
zatkin 9mo ago
This title gave me a weird feeling as if they were going to predict my own age.
- rogerrogerr 9mo ago
  That’s what they’re doing
- VTimofeenko 9mo ago
  Maybe at some point they will graduate to being able to predict who I am from "Friends"
  - heliumtera 9mo ago
    exactly, i`m genuinely impress by how few people here have figure this
JohnMakin 9mo ago
Hard no. It's so easy to get "flagged" by opaque systems for "Age verification" processes or account lockouts that require giving far too much PII to a company like this for my liking. > Users who are incorrectly placed in the under-18 experience will always have a fast, simple way to confirm their age and restore their full access with a selfie through Persona, a secure identity-verification service. Yea, my linkedin account which was 15 years old and was a paid pro user for several years got flagged for verification (no reason ever given, I rarely used it for anything other than interacting with recruiters) with this same company as their backend provider. They wouldn't accept a (super invasive feeling) full facial scan + a REAL ID, they also wanted a passport. So I opted out of the platform. There was no one to contact - it wasn't "fast" or "easy" at all. This kind of behavior feels like a data grab for more nefarious actors and data brokers further downstream of these kinds of services.
- seneca 9mo ago
  Yeah, this is all far far too invasive. The goal is obviously to gather as much data on you as possible under whatever pretense users are most likely to accept. "Think of the children", as always. This will then be used to sell advertising to you, or outright sell it to data brokers. New boss, same as the old boss.
- samename 9mo ago
  The unfortunate reality is this isn't just corporations acting against user's interests, governments around the world are pushing for these surveillance systems as well. It's all about centralizing power and control.
  - miki123211 9mo ago
    Don't forget the journalists. Facebook made journalists a lot less relevant, so anything that hurts Meta (and hence anything that hurts tech in general) is a good story that helps journalists get revenge and revenue. "Think of the children", as much as it is hated on HN, is a great way to get the population riled up. If there's something that happens which involves a tech company and a child, even if this is an anecdote that should have no bearing on policy, the media goes into a frenzy. As we all know, the media (and their consumers) love anecdotes and hate statistics, and because of how many users most tech products have, there are plenty of anecdotes to go around, no matter how good the company's intentions. Politicians still read the NY Times, who had reporters admit on record that they were explicitly asked to put tech in an unfavorable light[1], so if the NYT says something is a problem, legislators will try to legislate that problem away, no matter how harebrained, ineffective and ultimately harmful the solution is. [1] https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192?lang=en https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192?lang=en
- pixl97 9mo ago
  Yep. Whenever platforms opt for more data I opt out. And like clockwork they let loose all that PII to hackers within months.
- BowBun 9mo ago
sho_hn 9mo ago
I think this is good. I've been very aggressive toward OpenAI on here about parental controls and youth protection, and I have to say the recent work is definitely more than I expected out of them.
- DarkNova6 9mo ago
  "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"
  - sho_hn 9mo ago
    I'm an engineer working on safety-critical systems and have to live with that responsibility every day. When I read the chat logs of the first teenager who committed suicide with the help and encouragement of ChatGPT I was immediately thinking about ways that could be avoided that make sense in the product. I want companies like OpenAI to have the same reaction and try things. I'm just glad they are. I'm also fully aware this is unpopular on HN and will get downvoted by people who disagree. Too many software devs without direct experience in safety-critical work (what would you do if you truly are responsible?), too few parents, too many who are just selfishly worried their AI might get "censored". There are really good arguments against this stuff (e.g. the surveillance effects of identity checks, the efficacy of age verification, etc.) and plenty of nuance to implementations, but the whole censorship angle is lame.
    - throwaway132448 9mo ago
      Maybe we don’t all need saving from ourselves. Maybe we need to grow up and have some personal responsibility. As someone who is happy to do that, seeing personal freedom endlessly slashed in the name of safety is tiresome. My feelings have absolutely nothing to do with censorship. That’s just an easy straw man for you to try and dismiss my point of view, because you’re scared of not feeling safe.
      - sho_hn 9mo ago
        I'm not under 18. I assume you aren't either.
sigmar 9mo ago
>behavioral and account-level signals, including how long an account has existed, typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, and a user’s stated age. Surely they're using "history of the user-inputted chat" as a signal and just choosing not to highlight that? Because that would make it so much easier to predict age.
- zardo 9mo ago
  Chat history would be a good signal to predict age until you give kids a reason to try to confound it.
  - engineer_22 9mo ago
    Even more adults would be flagged as children.
  - sigmar 9mo ago
    I, for one, would love to see the gen alphas tiktoking about what 401k questions to type into chatgpt
    - jedberg 9mo ago
      Anyone remember the game Leisure Suit Larry? To get the full 18+ experience, you had to answer five trivia questions that only adults should know. But it turns out smart teens who like trivia knew most of them too (and you could just ask mom and dad, they had no clue why you were asking which President appeared on Laugh In).
      - duskwuff 9mo ago
        Also, hilariously, a lot of those questions require a trip to Wikipedia (or a game guide) today. A lot of them reference bits of 1960s/1970s pop culture which are no longer common knowledge. https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl1-age-quiz.html https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl1-age-quiz.ht...
al_borland 9mo ago
> Viral challenges that could encourage risky or harmful behavior in minors Why would it encourage this for anyone?
- gardnr 9mo ago
  Hey Al, they might be implying that non-minors would be impervious to the viral challenges based on some sort of well-developed critical thinking facilities. I am not so optimistic.
  - pixl97 9mo ago
    After watching politics over the past decade it seems people of all ages have no critical thinking skills.
  - al_borland 9mo ago
    A lot of people are using AI as a trusted friend, because they don't really have anyone else. A good friend would, I hope, talk someone out of doing something dangerous just to get a silly viral video. With AI being trained on the internet, that's going to have a very different take on things, as the internet only cares about the spectacle, not the person performing it.
    - renewiltord 9mo ago
      Agreed. We need to take away Internet access from psychologically susceptible people. Those with any mental illness should probably access the Internet only under supervision. They can request a URL and an online proctor can be automatically contacted who will view their screen and make sure that they are not viewing dangerous things. It is truly not just children who need protection.
      - Aurornis 9mo ago
        > We need to take away Internet access from psychologically susceptible people. Those with any mental illness should probably access the Internet only under supervision. Great way to ensure nobody seeks mental health treatment.
gardnr 9mo ago
When we look at how fast and coordinated the rollout of age verification has been around the globe, it's hard not to wonder if there was some impetus behind it. There are dark sides to the rollout that EFF details in their resource hub: https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification There is a confluence of surveillance capitalism and a global shift towards authoritarianism that makes it particularly alarming right now.
- JohnMakin 9mo ago
  Agreed - Interesting that these systems inevitably involve proving you're a citizen in some way, which seems unnecessary if your goal is to try to figure out someone's age.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
reducesuffering 9mo ago
In case it wasn't clear LLM conversations are being analyzed in a similar way to the social media advertising profiles... "Q: ipsum lorem ChatGPT: response Q: ipsum lorem" OpenAI: take this user's conversation history and insert the optimal ad that they're susceptible to, to make us the most $
whynotmaybe 9mo ago
Age detection was already very effective with Leisure Suit Larry 3 age questions. https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl3-age-quiz.html https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl3-age-quiz.ht...
- amarant 9mo ago
  Some of those questions are highly regional. Like the W-4 being a tax form... Not where I'm from it's not!
  - deleted 9mo ago
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  - deleted 9mo ago
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- accrual 9mo ago
  That's really funny and clever that this was a thing, thanks for sharing. I never had the fortune of trying to guess my way through these.
- tadfisher 9mo ago
  That's how I learned the meaning of "prophylactic" at age 10, in front of a neighborhood friend's 286.
jampa 9mo ago
I imagine they're building this system with the goal of extracting user demographics (age, sex, income) from chat conversations to improve advertising monetization. This seems to be a side project of their goal and a good way to calibrate the future ad system predictions.
- samename 9mo ago
  Exactly, all under the guise of "protect the children" - a tried and true surveillance and control trope.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    For context though, people have been screaming lately at OpenAI and other AI companies about not doing enough to protect the children. Almost like there is no winning, and one should just make everything 18+ to actually make people happy.
    - samename 9mo ago
      It doesn't make everyone happy though. I think it would be useful to examine who is asking OpenAI to protect the children, and why.
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
    - nurumaik 9mo ago
      What a coincidence: "protect the children" narrative got amplified right about when implementing profiling became needed for openai profits. Pure magic
      - b112 9mo ago
        I get why you're questioning motives, I'm sure it's convenient for them at this time. But age verification is all over the place. Entire countries (see Australia) have either passed laws, or have laws moving through legislative bodies. Many platforms have voluntarily complied. I expect by 2030, there won't be a place on Earth where not just age verification, but identity is required to access online platforms. If it wasn't for all the massive attempts to subvert our democracies by state actors, and even political movements within democratic societies, it wouldn't be so pushed. But with AI generated videos, chats, audio, images, I don't think anyone will be able to post anything on major platforms without their ID being verified. Not a chat, not an upload, nothing. I think consumption will be age vetted, not ID vetted. But any form of publishing, linked to ID. Posting on X. Anything. I've fought for freedom on the Internet, grew up when IRC was a thing, knew more freedom on the net than most using it today. But when 95% of what is posted on the net, is placed there with the aim to harm? Harm our societies, our peoples? Well, something's got to give. Then conjoin that with the great mental harm that smart phones and social media do to youth, and.. well, anonymity on the net is over. Like I said at the start, likely by 2030. (Note: having your ID known doesn't mean it's public. You can be registered, with ID, on X, on youtube, so the platform knows who you are. You can still be MrDude as an alias...)
nubg 9mo ago
They're trying to make ChatGPT more attractive to advertisers.
- samename 9mo ago
  Exactly. The more data they can collect, the better. Is it not in OpenAI's best interested for them to accidentally flag adults as teens so they have to "verify" their age by handing over their biometric data (Persona face scan) or their government ID? Certainly that level of granularity will enhance the product they offer for their advertisers.
- thuruv 9mo ago
  > We’re learning from the initial rollout and continuing to improve the accuracy of age prediction over time > While this is an important milestone, our work to support teen safety is ongoing. agreed, I guess we'll be seeing some pushbacks similar to Apple's CSAM but overall it's about getting a better demographics on their consumers for better advertising especially when you have a one-click actions combined with it. We'll be seeing handful of middleware plugins (like Honey) popping up, which I think the intended usecase for something like chat based apps
- big_toast 9mo ago
  I hope Anthropic or someone pulls an Apple and has the taste to say no to ads. Maybe it will just be Apple. (Even their resistance is slowly fading..) We don't need to jam ads into every orifice. I hope there's more value to be had not doing ads than there is to include them. I'd cancel my codex/chatgpt/claude if someone planted the flag. OpenAI seems to think it has infinite trust to burn.
  - fakedang 9mo ago
    You give too much credit to Apple in the AI age. Especially since they've already partnered with Google to power Siri with Gemini now. Apple is a has-been. Anthropic is best positioned to take up the privacy mantle, and may even be forced to, given that most of their revenue is enterprise and B2B.
BiteCode_dev 9mo ago
The minority reports vibe is getting stronger by the minutes.
throwaway132448 9mo ago
Creepy people doing creepy things.
aleksandrm 9mo ago
It's nonsense and doesn't work. They have "age predicted" my account a couple of months back saying I'm under 18, while I'm a man in my 40s who uses ChatGPT for mostly work related stuff, and nothing that would indicate that it's someone under 18. So now they are asking for a government ID to prove it. Yeah, no thanks.
- pixl97 9mo ago
  No more typing "how is babby formed" I guess.
  - aleksandrm 9mo ago
    "Am I pregante"
- samename 9mo ago
  That's because it was never really about protecting the children.
- deltoidmaximus 9mo ago
  The purpose isn't to actually predict age with any accuracy, it's really just a cover to get you to cough up PII. They'll slowly turn the need-verification knob so that everyone eventually has to do it.
afpx 9mo ago
OpenAI are liars. I have all the privacy settings on, and it still assumes things about me that it would only do if it knew all my previous conversations.
- footy 9mo ago
  sounds like a good reason to stop using it no?
seneca 9mo ago
It feels like OpenAI is moving into the extraction phase far too soon. They are making their product less appealing to end users with ads and aggressive user-data gathering (which is what this really is). Usually you have to be very secure in your position as a market segment owner before you start with the anti-consumer moves, but they are rapidly losing market share, and they have essentially no moat. Is the goal just to speed-run an IPO before they lose their position?
hexbin010 9mo ago
How do I block these ads?
- samename 9mo ago
  Stop using ChatGPT or pay $20/month (for now). Alternatively use the APIs instead
  - hexbin010 9mo ago
    I meant the ads submitted to HN
- duskdozer 9mo ago
  You don't! The future of advertisement is ensuring the user has no way of reliably detecting ads en masse
yunohn 9mo ago
This is 100% for advertising, not user safety. It’s absolutely crucial for effective ad monetization to know the users age - significant avenues are closed down due to various legislation like COPPA and similar around the world. It severely limits which users can even be subject to ads, the kind of ads, and whether data can be collected for profiling and targeting for ads.
- samename 9mo ago
  Are you suggesting regulations designed to protect children actually require more data collection and enable the surveillance economy?
  - yunohn 9mo ago
    Yes…? Even the EFF thinks so - https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification If this was for safety, they could’ve done it literally any time in the past few years - instead of within days of announcing their advertising plans!
qoez 9mo ago
Does regulators really care about a predicted age? I feel like they require hard proof of being above age to show explicit content. The only ones that care about predicted age is advertisers.
- Retr0id 9mo ago
  In the UK, age verification just has to be "robust" (not further specified). Face scanning, for example, is explicitly designated as an allowed heuristic.
- Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
  It's not much for the regulators as much as its for the advertisers. At this point, just use gemini (yes its google and has its issues if you need SOTA) or I have recently been trying out more and more chat.z.ai for simple text issues (like hey can you fix this docker issue etc.) and I feel like chat.z.ai is pretty good plus open source models (honestly chat.z.ai feels pretty SOTA to me)
  - threetonesun 9mo ago
    Kagi's Assistant is the most useful tool I've found as far as searching goes, and occasionally simple codegen. Let's you use a wide variety of models and isn't tracking me.
    - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
      If we are talking about complete privacy. I am trying out https://confer.to https://confer.to (created by signal team) too and I am unable to run it on my mac (passkey support)(I tried it both in zen & orion) but I tried it on an android chrome (tablet) and I am kinda more optimistic about it too I have heard good things about Kagi in fact, that's the reason why I tried orion and still have it in the first place but I haven't bought Kagi, I just used the free searches orion gives & I don't know if it has Kagi's assistant. I think proton's Lumo is another good bet. If you want something to not track you, I once asked cerebras team on their discord if they track the queries and responses from their website try now feature and they said that they don't. I don't really see a reason why they might lie about it given that its only meant for very basic purposes & they don't train models or anything. You also get one of the fastest inferences for models including GLM 4.7 (which z.ai uses) You might not get search results though but for search related queries duck.ai's pretty good and you can always mix and match. But Cerebras recently got a 10 billion $ investment from OpenAI and I Have been critical of them from now on so do be wary now. Kagi Assistant does seem to be good if someone already uses Kagi or has a subscription of it from what I feel like.
Retr0id 9mo ago
Everyone's saying this is for advertising, but I don't think it is. It's so they can let ChatGPT sext with adults.
- samename 9mo ago
  Do you expect the data collected for age verification will be completely separate from the advertising apparatus? I would expect the incentives would align for this to enhance their advertising options.
  - Retr0id 9mo ago
    I'll almost certainly get used for both, but I believe "adult content" is the primary motivator. If it was just for ads they wouldn't even bother announcing it as a "feature", they'd just do it. Also: "Users can check if safeguards have been added to their account and start this process at any time by going to Settings > Account."
    - Jensson 9mo ago
      > If it was just for ads they wouldn't even bother announcing it as a "feature", they'd just do it. Its a feature for advertisers, and investors also wanna know. Did you think you are the customer?
      - Retr0id 9mo ago
        "you can target ads by demographic" is table stakes
        datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
        Does this factoid contradict their motivation in publishing this information?
  - crimsoneer 9mo ago
    It would be a pretty massive GDPR breach if it wasn't, wouldn't it? All the biometrics is "special category" data which you can't play face and loose with.
sodafountan 9mo ago
I just asked ChatGPT. "Based on everything I've asked, how old do you think I am?" It was dead-on with its answer. It guessed 30-35. I'm 32. That was just a spur-of-the-moment question. I've been using ChatGPT for over six months now.
- prox 9mo ago
  But did it tell on what basis it made that assumption?
  - sodafountan 9mo ago
    Yes, it listed a few of my past questions as reference points. I had asked some questions about Nintendo 64/Dreamcast and Gamecube games. It also used information I had asked it about programming languages and some work-related questions to guess my age. I don't know how OpenAI plans to do this going forward, just quickly read the article and figured that might be a good question to ask ChatGPT. Edit: I just followed that up with, "Based on everything I've asked, what gender am I?" It refused to answer, stating it wouldn't assume my gender and treats me as gender neutral. So I guess it's ok for an AI agent to assume your age, but not your gender... ? I don't really feel like diving into the ethics of OpenAI at the moment lol.
    - prox 9mo ago
      If they are shielding you giving back answers, doesn’t mean there is a lot of profiling going on behind the screens of all big tech. How close are they to behavioral monitoring?
    - knallfrosch 9mo ago
      Age is a must. Gender is too easy. You know what the problem is? These systems know your ethnicity and religion.
      - sodafountan 9mo ago
        I would assume that it would be able to make those assumptions based on the questions you ask it, but OpenAI would never allow an LLM to answer those types of inquiries. That would obviously cross some boundaries. I find it strange that having it assume your age isn't off limits - according to the article, it's about to become a major feature.
Barrin92 9mo ago
well I hope it's better than Spotify's age prediction which came to the conclusion that I'm 87 years old. Seriously though this is the most easily game-able thing imaginable, pretty sure teens are clever enough to figure out how to pretend to be an adult. If you've come to the conclusion that your product is unsuited for kids implement actual age verification instead of these shoddy stochastic surveillance systems. There's a reason "his voice sounded deep" isn't going to work for the cashier who sold kids booze
raincole 9mo ago
Pretty cool. Evidence that you can do whatever you want under the banner of 'protecting the kids.'
- bilekas 9mo ago
  Protecting the kids and fighting terror. Anything that can't be argued against is always used as a justification of people in power who don't want to incite a riot. Politicians, CEOs, Lawyers it's standard practice because it's so effective.
  - Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
    The holy trinity is complete with 3., "money laundering (prevention/detection)".
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
elzbardico 9mo ago
Looks like an elegant solution. And yes, demographics are useful for advertising.
gostsamo 9mo ago
Let's be honest - to protect the children, big tech will put everyone under the suspicion of being one. And the issue is not how they use the technologies they have, because they have a moral responsibility to do it safely, but that we don't have technologies of hours. What I wonder lately is how an adult person can be empowered by tech to bare the consequences of their action and the answer usually is that we cannot. We don''t have the means of production in the literal marxist definition of the phrase and we are being shaped by outside forces that define what we can do with ourselves. And it does not matter if those forces are benevolent or not, it matters that it is not us. The winter is coming and we are short on thermal underware. The chinese open models being reason for hope is just a very sad joke.
xgkickt 9mo ago
How long before a phrase is found that causes a predicted birthdate of 1970/01/01 ?
curtisblaine 9mo ago
Wait, I don't understand this. Does it mean that they can erroneously predict I'm a minor, covertly restrict my account without me knowing? I guess it's time to cancel my subscription.
- samename 9mo ago
  Yes, but it's to protect the children! ;) Just scan your face in the app and your restrictions will be lifted.
Shellban 9mo ago
Considering that OpenAI is having trouble getting its models to avoid recommending suicide (something it probably does not want for ANY user), I rather doubt this age prediction is going to be that helpful for curbing the tool's behavior.
Jonovono 9mo ago
For some reason ChatGPT has suddenly started thinking i'm a teen. Every answer it starts out "Since you are a teen I will..." and prompts me to upload an ID to show my age. I'm 35.
- loloquwowndueo 9mo ago
  Forever young, my dude. Forever young.
  - Jonovono 9mo ago
    Haha ya I asked my my younger brother if he’s gotten it and he said he didn’t. I’m like alright I must give off youthful vibes ;)
    - aaronblohowiak 9mo ago
      sigma rizzler, no cap.
- samename 9mo ago
  Does OpenAI have an incentive to get age prediction "wrong" so that more people "verify" their ages by uploading an ID or scanning their face, allowing "OpenAI" to collect more demographic data just in time to enable ads?
  - renewiltord 9mo ago
    Oh yes. In fact, I read on Reddit that they have secret project to use Worldcoin.
  - Hoasi 9mo ago
    Maybe they should start scanning users' irises.
  - BatteryMountain 9mo ago
    YES. They all do. Everyone is dripping to get their hands on your biometric data and medical info.
mayhemducks 9mo ago
See it starts with gender, and if (user.gender === "Female") user.age = 29. After that, the algorithm gets very complex and becomes a black box. I'm sure they spent billions training it.
mmooss 9mo ago
Their teen content restrictions > ChatGPT automatically applies additional protections designed to reduce exposure to sensitive content, such as: * Graphic violence or gory content * Viral challenges that could encourage risky or harmful behavior in minors * Sexual, romantic, or violent role play * Depictions of self-harm * Content that promotes extreme beauty standards, unhealthy dieting, or body shaming That wording implies that's not comprehensive, but hate and disinformation are omitted.
greatgib 9mo ago
> typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, > Users [...] will always have a [...] simple way to confirm their age and restore their full access with a selfie through Persona, a secure identity-verification service. Nice, so now your most secret inner talk with the LLM can be directly associated with face and ID. Get ready for the fun moment when Trump decide that he needs to see what are your discussions with the AI when you pass the border or piss him off...
- knallfrosch 9mo ago
  20 years of Google searches, iCloud calendar events, Microsoft EMails, Netflix viewing and Amazon purchases have doomed you already.
nomilk 9mo ago
This could have the unintended consequence of encouraging under-agers to ask more 'adult' questions in order to try to trick it into thinking they're an adult. Analogous to the city that wanted to get rid of rats, so offered a bounty for every dead rat, and to the surprise of nobody except policy makers, the city ended up with more rats, not less. (lesson: they thought they were incentivising less rats, but unintentionally incentivised more) The padding in OpenAI's statement is easy to see through: > The model looks at a combination of behavioral and account-level signals, including how long an account has existed, typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, and a user’s stated age. (the only real signal here is 'usage patterns' - AKA the content of conversations - the other variables are obfuscation to soften the idea that OpenAI will be pouring over users' private conversations to figure out if they're over/under age.). Worth also noting 'neutered' AI models tend to be less useful. Example: Older Stable Diffusion models were preferred over newer, neutered models: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFtjKbXKqbg&t=1h16m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFtjKbXKqbg&t=1h16m
- Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
  I am an actual minor and I think I used to watch enough mature content (ie some finance,geopolitics & tech) from youtube where they may have thought I was greater than 18 But when youtube rolled out, I saw this video on taxes simply for tricking the youtube algorithm which had like A LOT of views. I went to the comments and much of them were teenagers bashing the yt idea and commenting in jest about how yes they got helped in their taxes etc. I simply don't see how openAI would be any different. Youtube is still a one in a million though, Nothing else like that exists but there are many chat providers like OpenAI which are actually pretty good nowadays & don't want your id.
zombot 9mo ago
More bullshit from the masters of the bullshit generator.
BatteryMountain 9mo ago
Do not give your biometric & photos of ID's or videos of your face to these companies. Nether to third-parties. The potential failure modes here are very high risk and not worth it. Better to unsubscribe and let them know why.
- terminalshort 9mo ago
  What is the risk? Anyone who wants a picture of my face can already get one by googling my name and going to my linkedin profile.
  - tormeh 9mo ago
    For phots of ID this is obvious: A data leak, followed by impersonation ("identity theft") and unwelcome invoices and/or empty bank accounts.
  - jacquesm 9mo ago
    Depending what they get about you the risks range from impersonation all the way to deepfakes.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - BatteryMountain 9mo ago
    Some dumb companies and gov entities use national ID numbers (social security numbers for americans)as secret identifiers or grants access if presented. It typically has place of birth, date of birth, full names, gender, and face pic. In most cases this is enough to commit a ton of different kinds of fraud or hijack certain accounts (especially social engineering). In my mind, national Id's (and the extra meta data of the person) should be public and only used for identification, not for authentication or authorization. Meaning there needs to be two or three extra steps after providing it to allow a transaction to occur. This needs to be a legal requirement for companies if they enter into contracts with a person. If we need to prove we are not-minors or authenticate we are real or authorize access of personal information, the government should provide an api to auth the request, since they are the issuer of the document (the ID), so only they actually have the means to prove you are real and you are above 18. This can allow for a company to ask the gov, "is this person real and is this person above 18", and the gov shows me the request (otp, ussd, email, OS popup etc) to confirm the request and to select what info that company can pull. So its is 3 legged system, no third party companies involved. If the gov wants to create these constraints, they need to be the ones to provide the mean to authenticate (both for the consumer and the company). Also, when the gov shows the request to the user/citizen, it need to show exactly what the company is asking for and the full details of the company and the human representative that is making the request (almost similar to OAuth). The problem runs much deeper than just "Whats the risk, my facepic is public already". Oh and this has nothing to do with minor and wont protect them in any way - only way to protect them is to take internet access away. The internet is not a child-friendly place and wasn't built by or for children. We should not bend to make it child friendly as it will destroy the internet in the long term.
Barathkanna 9mo ago
I get why this exists and appreciate the transparency, but it still feels like a slippery middle ground. Age prediction avoids hard ID checks, which is good for privacy, yet it also normalizes behavioral inference about users that can be wrong in subtle ways. I’m supportive of the safety goal, but long term I’m more comfortable with systems that rely on explicit user choice and clear guardrails rather than probabilistic profiling, even if that’s messier to implement
TimByte 9mo ago
The selfie re-verification escape hatch helps, but it also quietly normalizes "prove you're an adult to get full functionality," which is a pretty big shift from how most software has worked historically
lunias 9mo ago
We need better local models. I'm so ready to done with all these services and just do what I want, how I want, on my own hardware / network.
- nullc 9mo ago
  We need the commodification of higher dram GPUs. The effect of masses of people using a thing can't exist until the hardware is ubiquitous.
  - lunias 9mo ago
    True, but I've been consistently amazed by the improvements of the software in such a short amount of time (even running on the same hardware). I only have 8GB of VRAM, but it's amazing what I can do with those 8GB compared to a year or two ago.
sjs382 9mo ago
Worldcoin didn't gain any traction so now this?

127 points by pretext 9mo ago

>young people deserve technology that both expands opportunity and protects their well-being. Then maybe OpenAI should just close shop, since (SaaS) LLMs do neither in the mid to long term.

twelvechairs 9mo ago

"it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

zatkin 9mo ago

This title gave me a weird feeling as if they were going to predict my own age.

rogerrogerr 9mo ago
That’s what they’re doing
VTimofeenko 9mo ago
Maybe at some point they will graduate to being able to predict who I am from "Friends"
- heliumtera 9mo ago
  exactly, i`m genuinely impress by how few people here have figure this

JohnMakin 9mo ago

Hard no. It's so easy to get "flagged" by opaque systems for "Age verification" processes or account lockouts that require giving far too much PII to a company like this for my liking. > Users who are incorrectly placed in the under-18 experience will always have a fast, simple way to confirm their age and restore their full access with a selfie through Persona, a secure identity-verification service. Yea, my linkedin account which was 15 years old and was a paid pro user for several years got flagged for verification (no reason ever given, I rarely used it for anything other than interacting with recruiters) with this same company as their backend provider. They wouldn't accept a (super invasive feeling) full facial scan + a REAL ID, they also wanted a passport. So I opted out of the platform. There was no one to contact - it wasn't "fast" or "easy" at all. This kind of behavior feels like a data grab for more nefarious actors and data brokers further downstream of these kinds of services.

seneca 9mo ago
Yeah, this is all far far too invasive. The goal is obviously to gather as much data on you as possible under whatever pretense users are most likely to accept. "Think of the children", as always. This will then be used to sell advertising to you, or outright sell it to data brokers. New boss, same as the old boss.
samename 9mo ago
The unfortunate reality is this isn't just corporations acting against user's interests, governments around the world are pushing for these surveillance systems as well. It's all about centralizing power and control.
- miki123211 9mo ago
  Don't forget the journalists. Facebook made journalists a lot less relevant, so anything that hurts Meta (and hence anything that hurts tech in general) is a good story that helps journalists get revenge and revenue. "Think of the children", as much as it is hated on HN, is a great way to get the population riled up. If there's something that happens which involves a tech company and a child, even if this is an anecdote that should have no bearing on policy, the media goes into a frenzy. As we all know, the media (and their consumers) love anecdotes and hate statistics, and because of how many users most tech products have, there are plenty of anecdotes to go around, no matter how good the company's intentions. Politicians still read the NY Times, who had reporters admit on record that they were explicitly asked to put tech in an unfavorable light[1], so if the NYT says something is a problem, legislators will try to legislate that problem away, no matter how harebrained, ineffective and ultimately harmful the solution is. [1] https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192?lang=en https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192?lang=en
pixl97 9mo ago
Yep. Whenever platforms opt for more data I opt out. And like clockwork they let loose all that PII to hackers within months.
BowBun 9mo ago

sho_hn 9mo ago

I think this is good. I've been very aggressive toward OpenAI on here about parental controls and youth protection, and I have to say the recent work is definitely more than I expected out of them.

DarkNova6 9mo ago
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"
- sho_hn 9mo ago
  I'm an engineer working on safety-critical systems and have to live with that responsibility every day. When I read the chat logs of the first teenager who committed suicide with the help and encouragement of ChatGPT I was immediately thinking about ways that could be avoided that make sense in the product. I want companies like OpenAI to have the same reaction and try things. I'm just glad they are. I'm also fully aware this is unpopular on HN and will get downvoted by people who disagree. Too many software devs without direct experience in safety-critical work (what would you do if you truly are responsible?), too few parents, too many who are just selfishly worried their AI might get "censored". There are really good arguments against this stuff (e.g. the surveillance effects of identity checks, the efficacy of age verification, etc.) and plenty of nuance to implementations, but the whole censorship angle is lame.
  - throwaway132448 9mo ago
    Maybe we don’t all need saving from ourselves. Maybe we need to grow up and have some personal responsibility. As someone who is happy to do that, seeing personal freedom endlessly slashed in the name of safety is tiresome. My feelings have absolutely nothing to do with censorship. That’s just an easy straw man for you to try and dismiss my point of view, because you’re scared of not feeling safe.
    - sho_hn 9mo ago
      I'm not under 18. I assume you aren't either.

sigmar 9mo ago

>behavioral and account-level signals, including how long an account has existed, typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, and a user’s stated age. Surely they're using "history of the user-inputted chat" as a signal and just choosing not to highlight that? Because that would make it so much easier to predict age.

zardo 9mo ago
Chat history would be a good signal to predict age until you give kids a reason to try to confound it.
- engineer_22 9mo ago
  Even more adults would be flagged as children.
- sigmar 9mo ago
  I, for one, would love to see the gen alphas tiktoking about what 401k questions to type into chatgpt
  - jedberg 9mo ago
    Anyone remember the game Leisure Suit Larry? To get the full 18+ experience, you had to answer five trivia questions that only adults should know. But it turns out smart teens who like trivia knew most of them too (and you could just ask mom and dad, they had no clue why you were asking which President appeared on Laugh In).
    - duskwuff 9mo ago
      Also, hilariously, a lot of those questions require a trip to Wikipedia (or a game guide) today. A lot of them reference bits of 1960s/1970s pop culture which are no longer common knowledge. https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl1-age-quiz.html https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl1-age-quiz.ht...

al_borland 9mo ago

> Viral challenges that could encourage risky or harmful behavior in minors Why would it encourage this for anyone?

gardnr 9mo ago
Hey Al, they might be implying that non-minors would be impervious to the viral challenges based on some sort of well-developed critical thinking facilities. I am not so optimistic.
- pixl97 9mo ago
  After watching politics over the past decade it seems people of all ages have no critical thinking skills.
- al_borland 9mo ago
  A lot of people are using AI as a trusted friend, because they don't really have anyone else. A good friend would, I hope, talk someone out of doing something dangerous just to get a silly viral video. With AI being trained on the internet, that's going to have a very different take on things, as the internet only cares about the spectacle, not the person performing it.
  - renewiltord 9mo ago
    Agreed. We need to take away Internet access from psychologically susceptible people. Those with any mental illness should probably access the Internet only under supervision. They can request a URL and an online proctor can be automatically contacted who will view their screen and make sure that they are not viewing dangerous things. It is truly not just children who need protection.
    - Aurornis 9mo ago
      > We need to take away Internet access from psychologically susceptible people. Those with any mental illness should probably access the Internet only under supervision. Great way to ensure nobody seeks mental health treatment.

gardnr 9mo ago

When we look at how fast and coordinated the rollout of age verification has been around the globe, it's hard not to wonder if there was some impetus behind it. There are dark sides to the rollout that EFF details in their resource hub: https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification There is a confluence of surveillance capitalism and a global shift towards authoritarianism that makes it particularly alarming right now.

JohnMakin 9mo ago
Agreed - Interesting that these systems inevitably involve proving you're a citizen in some way, which seems unnecessary if your goal is to try to figure out someone's age.
- deleted 9mo ago
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reducesuffering 9mo ago

In case it wasn't clear LLM conversations are being analyzed in a similar way to the social media advertising profiles... "Q: ipsum lorem ChatGPT: response Q: ipsum lorem" OpenAI: take this user's conversation history and insert the optimal ad that they're susceptible to, to make us the most $

whynotmaybe 9mo ago

Age detection was already very effective with Leisure Suit Larry 3 age questions. https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl3-age-quiz.html https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl3-age-quiz.ht...

amarant 9mo ago
Some of those questions are highly regional. Like the W-4 being a tax form... Not where I'm from it's not!
- deleted 9mo ago
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- deleted 9mo ago
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accrual 9mo ago
That's really funny and clever that this was a thing, thanks for sharing. I never had the fortune of trying to guess my way through these.
tadfisher 9mo ago
That's how I learned the meaning of "prophylactic" at age 10, in front of a neighborhood friend's 286.

jampa 9mo ago

I imagine they're building this system with the goal of extracting user demographics (age, sex, income) from chat conversations to improve advertising monetization. This seems to be a side project of their goal and a good way to calibrate the future ad system predictions.

samename 9mo ago
Exactly, all under the guise of "protect the children" - a tried and true surveillance and control trope.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  For context though, people have been screaming lately at OpenAI and other AI companies about not doing enough to protect the children. Almost like there is no winning, and one should just make everything 18+ to actually make people happy.
  - samename 9mo ago
    It doesn't make everyone happy though. I think it would be useful to examine who is asking OpenAI to protect the children, and why.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
  - nurumaik 9mo ago
    What a coincidence: "protect the children" narrative got amplified right about when implementing profiling became needed for openai profits. Pure magic
    - b112 9mo ago
      I get why you're questioning motives, I'm sure it's convenient for them at this time. But age verification is all over the place. Entire countries (see Australia) have either passed laws, or have laws moving through legislative bodies. Many platforms have voluntarily complied. I expect by 2030, there won't be a place on Earth where not just age verification, but identity is required to access online platforms. If it wasn't for all the massive attempts to subvert our democracies by state actors, and even political movements within democratic societies, it wouldn't be so pushed. But with AI generated videos, chats, audio, images, I don't think anyone will be able to post anything on major platforms without their ID being verified. Not a chat, not an upload, nothing. I think consumption will be age vetted, not ID vetted. But any form of publishing, linked to ID. Posting on X. Anything. I've fought for freedom on the Internet, grew up when IRC was a thing, knew more freedom on the net than most using it today. But when 95% of what is posted on the net, is placed there with the aim to harm? Harm our societies, our peoples? Well, something's got to give. Then conjoin that with the great mental harm that smart phones and social media do to youth, and.. well, anonymity on the net is over. Like I said at the start, likely by 2030. (Note: having your ID known doesn't mean it's public. You can be registered, with ID, on X, on youtube, so the platform knows who you are. You can still be MrDude as an alias...)

nubg 9mo ago

They're trying to make ChatGPT more attractive to advertisers.

samename 9mo ago
Exactly. The more data they can collect, the better. Is it not in OpenAI's best interested for them to accidentally flag adults as teens so they have to "verify" their age by handing over their biometric data (Persona face scan) or their government ID? Certainly that level of granularity will enhance the product they offer for their advertisers.
thuruv 9mo ago
> We’re learning from the initial rollout and continuing to improve the accuracy of age prediction over time > While this is an important milestone, our work to support teen safety is ongoing. agreed, I guess we'll be seeing some pushbacks similar to Apple's CSAM but overall it's about getting a better demographics on their consumers for better advertising especially when you have a one-click actions combined with it. We'll be seeing handful of middleware plugins (like Honey) popping up, which I think the intended usecase for something like chat based apps
big_toast 9mo ago
I hope Anthropic or someone pulls an Apple and has the taste to say no to ads. Maybe it will just be Apple. (Even their resistance is slowly fading..) We don't need to jam ads into every orifice. I hope there's more value to be had not doing ads than there is to include them. I'd cancel my codex/chatgpt/claude if someone planted the flag. OpenAI seems to think it has infinite trust to burn.
- fakedang 9mo ago
  You give too much credit to Apple in the AI age. Especially since they've already partnered with Google to power Siri with Gemini now. Apple is a has-been. Anthropic is best positioned to take up the privacy mantle, and may even be forced to, given that most of their revenue is enterprise and B2B.

BiteCode_dev 9mo ago

The minority reports vibe is getting stronger by the minutes.

throwaway132448 9mo ago

Creepy people doing creepy things.

aleksandrm 9mo ago

It's nonsense and doesn't work. They have "age predicted" my account a couple of months back saying I'm under 18, while I'm a man in my 40s who uses ChatGPT for mostly work related stuff, and nothing that would indicate that it's someone under 18. So now they are asking for a government ID to prove it. Yeah, no thanks.

pixl97 9mo ago
No more typing "how is babby formed" I guess.
- aleksandrm 9mo ago
  "Am I pregante"
samename 9mo ago
That's because it was never really about protecting the children.
deltoidmaximus 9mo ago
The purpose isn't to actually predict age with any accuracy, it's really just a cover to get you to cough up PII. They'll slowly turn the need-verification knob so that everyone eventually has to do it.

afpx 9mo ago

OpenAI are liars. I have all the privacy settings on, and it still assumes things about me that it would only do if it knew all my previous conversations.

footy 9mo ago
sounds like a good reason to stop using it no?

seneca 9mo ago

It feels like OpenAI is moving into the extraction phase far too soon. They are making their product less appealing to end users with ads and aggressive user-data gathering (which is what this really is). Usually you have to be very secure in your position as a market segment owner before you start with the anti-consumer moves, but they are rapidly losing market share, and they have essentially no moat. Is the goal just to speed-run an IPO before they lose their position?

hexbin010 9mo ago

How do I block these ads?

samename 9mo ago
Stop using ChatGPT or pay $20/month (for now). Alternatively use the APIs instead
- hexbin010 9mo ago
  I meant the ads submitted to HN
duskdozer 9mo ago
You don't! The future of advertisement is ensuring the user has no way of reliably detecting ads en masse

yunohn 9mo ago

This is 100% for advertising, not user safety. It’s absolutely crucial for effective ad monetization to know the users age - significant avenues are closed down due to various legislation like COPPA and similar around the world. It severely limits which users can even be subject to ads, the kind of ads, and whether data can be collected for profiling and targeting for ads.

samename 9mo ago
Are you suggesting regulations designed to protect children actually require more data collection and enable the surveillance economy?
- yunohn 9mo ago
  Yes…? Even the EFF thinks so - https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification If this was for safety, they could’ve done it literally any time in the past few years - instead of within days of announcing their advertising plans!

qoez 9mo ago

Does regulators really care about a predicted age? I feel like they require hard proof of being above age to show explicit content. The only ones that care about predicted age is advertisers.

Retr0id 9mo ago
In the UK, age verification just has to be "robust" (not further specified). Face scanning, for example, is explicitly designated as an allowed heuristic.
Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
It's not much for the regulators as much as its for the advertisers. At this point, just use gemini (yes its google and has its issues if you need SOTA) or I have recently been trying out more and more chat.z.ai for simple text issues (like hey can you fix this docker issue etc.) and I feel like chat.z.ai is pretty good plus open source models (honestly chat.z.ai feels pretty SOTA to me)
- threetonesun 9mo ago
  Kagi's Assistant is the most useful tool I've found as far as searching goes, and occasionally simple codegen. Let's you use a wide variety of models and isn't tracking me.
  - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
    If we are talking about complete privacy. I am trying out https://confer.to https://confer.to (created by signal team) too and I am unable to run it on my mac (passkey support)(I tried it both in zen & orion) but I tried it on an android chrome (tablet) and I am kinda more optimistic about it too I have heard good things about Kagi in fact, that's the reason why I tried orion and still have it in the first place but I haven't bought Kagi, I just used the free searches orion gives & I don't know if it has Kagi's assistant. I think proton's Lumo is another good bet. If you want something to not track you, I once asked cerebras team on their discord if they track the queries and responses from their website try now feature and they said that they don't. I don't really see a reason why they might lie about it given that its only meant for very basic purposes & they don't train models or anything. You also get one of the fastest inferences for models including GLM 4.7 (which z.ai uses) You might not get search results though but for search related queries duck.ai's pretty good and you can always mix and match. But Cerebras recently got a 10 billion $ investment from OpenAI and I Have been critical of them from now on so do be wary now. Kagi Assistant does seem to be good if someone already uses Kagi or has a subscription of it from what I feel like.

Retr0id 9mo ago

Everyone's saying this is for advertising, but I don't think it is. It's so they can let ChatGPT sext with adults.

samename 9mo ago
Do you expect the data collected for age verification will be completely separate from the advertising apparatus? I would expect the incentives would align for this to enhance their advertising options.
- Retr0id 9mo ago
  I'll almost certainly get used for both, but I believe "adult content" is the primary motivator. If it was just for ads they wouldn't even bother announcing it as a "feature", they'd just do it. Also: "Users can check if safeguards have been added to their account and start this process at any time by going to Settings > Account."
  - Jensson 9mo ago
    > If it was just for ads they wouldn't even bother announcing it as a "feature", they'd just do it. Its a feature for advertisers, and investors also wanna know. Did you think you are the customer?
    - Retr0id 9mo ago
      "you can target ads by demographic" is table stakes
      - datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
        Does this factoid contradict their motivation in publishing this information?
- crimsoneer 9mo ago
  It would be a pretty massive GDPR breach if it wasn't, wouldn't it? All the biometrics is "special category" data which you can't play face and loose with.

sodafountan 9mo ago

I just asked ChatGPT. "Based on everything I've asked, how old do you think I am?" It was dead-on with its answer. It guessed 30-35. I'm 32. That was just a spur-of-the-moment question. I've been using ChatGPT for over six months now.

prox 9mo ago
But did it tell on what basis it made that assumption?
- sodafountan 9mo ago
  Yes, it listed a few of my past questions as reference points. I had asked some questions about Nintendo 64/Dreamcast and Gamecube games. It also used information I had asked it about programming languages and some work-related questions to guess my age. I don't know how OpenAI plans to do this going forward, just quickly read the article and figured that might be a good question to ask ChatGPT. Edit: I just followed that up with, "Based on everything I've asked, what gender am I?" It refused to answer, stating it wouldn't assume my gender and treats me as gender neutral. So I guess it's ok for an AI agent to assume your age, but not your gender... ? I don't really feel like diving into the ethics of OpenAI at the moment lol.
  - prox 9mo ago
    If they are shielding you giving back answers, doesn’t mean there is a lot of profiling going on behind the screens of all big tech. How close are they to behavioral monitoring?
  - knallfrosch 9mo ago
    Age is a must. Gender is too easy. You know what the problem is? These systems know your ethnicity and religion.
    - sodafountan 9mo ago
      I would assume that it would be able to make those assumptions based on the questions you ask it, but OpenAI would never allow an LLM to answer those types of inquiries. That would obviously cross some boundaries. I find it strange that having it assume your age isn't off limits - according to the article, it's about to become a major feature.

Barrin92 9mo ago

well I hope it's better than Spotify's age prediction which came to the conclusion that I'm 87 years old. Seriously though this is the most easily game-able thing imaginable, pretty sure teens are clever enough to figure out how to pretend to be an adult. If you've come to the conclusion that your product is unsuited for kids implement actual age verification instead of these shoddy stochastic surveillance systems. There's a reason "his voice sounded deep" isn't going to work for the cashier who sold kids booze

raincole 9mo ago

Pretty cool. Evidence that you can do whatever you want under the banner of 'protecting the kids.'

bilekas 9mo ago
Protecting the kids and fighting terror. Anything that can't be argued against is always used as a justification of people in power who don't want to incite a riot. Politicians, CEOs, Lawyers it's standard practice because it's so effective.
- Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
  The holy trinity is complete with 3., "money laundering (prevention/detection)".
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

elzbardico 9mo ago

Looks like an elegant solution. And yes, demographics are useful for advertising.

gostsamo 9mo ago

Let's be honest - to protect the children, big tech will put everyone under the suspicion of being one. And the issue is not how they use the technologies they have, because they have a moral responsibility to do it safely, but that we don't have technologies of hours. What I wonder lately is how an adult person can be empowered by tech to bare the consequences of their action and the answer usually is that we cannot. We don''t have the means of production in the literal marxist definition of the phrase and we are being shaped by outside forces that define what we can do with ourselves. And it does not matter if those forces are benevolent or not, it matters that it is not us. The winter is coming and we are short on thermal underware. The chinese open models being reason for hope is just a very sad joke.

xgkickt 9mo ago

How long before a phrase is found that causes a predicted birthdate of 1970/01/01 ?

curtisblaine 9mo ago

Wait, I don't understand this. Does it mean that they can erroneously predict I'm a minor, covertly restrict my account without me knowing? I guess it's time to cancel my subscription.

samename 9mo ago
Yes, but it's to protect the children! ;) Just scan your face in the app and your restrictions will be lifted.

Shellban 9mo ago

Considering that OpenAI is having trouble getting its models to avoid recommending suicide (something it probably does not want for ANY user), I rather doubt this age prediction is going to be that helpful for curbing the tool's behavior.

Jonovono 9mo ago

For some reason ChatGPT has suddenly started thinking i'm a teen. Every answer it starts out "Since you are a teen I will..." and prompts me to upload an ID to show my age. I'm 35.

loloquwowndueo 9mo ago
Forever young, my dude. Forever young.
- Jonovono 9mo ago
  Haha ya I asked my my younger brother if he’s gotten it and he said he didn’t. I’m like alright I must give off youthful vibes ;)
  - aaronblohowiak 9mo ago
    sigma rizzler, no cap.
samename 9mo ago
Does OpenAI have an incentive to get age prediction "wrong" so that more people "verify" their ages by uploading an ID or scanning their face, allowing "OpenAI" to collect more demographic data just in time to enable ads?
- renewiltord 9mo ago
  Oh yes. In fact, I read on Reddit that they have secret project to use Worldcoin.
- Hoasi 9mo ago
  Maybe they should start scanning users' irises.
- BatteryMountain 9mo ago
  YES. They all do. Everyone is dripping to get their hands on your biometric data and medical info.

mayhemducks 9mo ago

See it starts with gender, and if (user.gender === "Female") user.age = 29. After that, the algorithm gets very complex and becomes a black box. I'm sure they spent billions training it.

mmooss 9mo ago

Their teen content restrictions > ChatGPT automatically applies additional protections designed to reduce exposure to sensitive content, such as: * Graphic violence or gory content * Viral challenges that could encourage risky or harmful behavior in minors * Sexual, romantic, or violent role play * Depictions of self-harm * Content that promotes extreme beauty standards, unhealthy dieting, or body shaming That wording implies that's not comprehensive, but hate and disinformation are omitted.

greatgib 9mo ago

> typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, > Users [...] will always have a [...] simple way to confirm their age and restore their full access with a selfie through Persona, a secure identity-verification service. Nice, so now your most secret inner talk with the LLM can be directly associated with face and ID. Get ready for the fun moment when Trump decide that he needs to see what are your discussions with the AI when you pass the border or piss him off...

knallfrosch 9mo ago
20 years of Google searches, iCloud calendar events, Microsoft EMails, Netflix viewing and Amazon purchases have doomed you already.

nomilk 9mo ago

This could have the unintended consequence of encouraging under-agers to ask more 'adult' questions in order to try to trick it into thinking they're an adult. Analogous to the city that wanted to get rid of rats, so offered a bounty for every dead rat, and to the surprise of nobody except policy makers, the city ended up with more rats, not less. (lesson: they thought they were incentivising less rats, but unintentionally incentivised more) The padding in OpenAI's statement is easy to see through: > The model looks at a combination of behavioral and account-level signals, including how long an account has existed, typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, and a user’s stated age. (the only real signal here is 'usage patterns' - AKA the content of conversations - the other variables are obfuscation to soften the idea that OpenAI will be pouring over users' private conversations to figure out if they're over/under age.). Worth also noting 'neutered' AI models tend to be less useful. Example: Older Stable Diffusion models were preferred over newer, neutered models: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFtjKbXKqbg&t=1h16m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFtjKbXKqbg&t=1h16m

Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
I am an actual minor and I think I used to watch enough mature content (ie some finance,geopolitics & tech) from youtube where they may have thought I was greater than 18 But when youtube rolled out, I saw this video on taxes simply for tricking the youtube algorithm which had like A LOT of views. I went to the comments and much of them were teenagers bashing the yt idea and commenting in jest about how yes they got helped in their taxes etc. I simply don't see how openAI would be any different. Youtube is still a one in a million though, Nothing else like that exists but there are many chat providers like OpenAI which are actually pretty good nowadays & don't want your id.

zombot 9mo ago

More bullshit from the masters of the bullshit generator.

BatteryMountain 9mo ago

Do not give your biometric & photos of ID's or videos of your face to these companies. Nether to third-parties. The potential failure modes here are very high risk and not worth it. Better to unsubscribe and let them know why.

terminalshort 9mo ago
What is the risk? Anyone who wants a picture of my face can already get one by googling my name and going to my linkedin profile.
- tormeh 9mo ago
  For phots of ID this is obvious: A data leak, followed by impersonation ("identity theft") and unwelcome invoices and/or empty bank accounts.
- jacquesm 9mo ago
  Depending what they get about you the risks range from impersonation all the way to deepfakes.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- BatteryMountain 9mo ago
  Some dumb companies and gov entities use national ID numbers (social security numbers for americans)as secret identifiers or grants access if presented. It typically has place of birth, date of birth, full names, gender, and face pic. In most cases this is enough to commit a ton of different kinds of fraud or hijack certain accounts (especially social engineering). In my mind, national Id's (and the extra meta data of the person) should be public and only used for identification, not for authentication or authorization. Meaning there needs to be two or three extra steps after providing it to allow a transaction to occur. This needs to be a legal requirement for companies if they enter into contracts with a person. If we need to prove we are not-minors or authenticate we are real or authorize access of personal information, the government should provide an api to auth the request, since they are the issuer of the document (the ID), so only they actually have the means to prove you are real and you are above 18. This can allow for a company to ask the gov, "is this person real and is this person above 18", and the gov shows me the request (otp, ussd, email, OS popup etc) to confirm the request and to select what info that company can pull. So its is 3 legged system, no third party companies involved. If the gov wants to create these constraints, they need to be the ones to provide the mean to authenticate (both for the consumer and the company). Also, when the gov shows the request to the user/citizen, it need to show exactly what the company is asking for and the full details of the company and the human representative that is making the request (almost similar to OAuth). The problem runs much deeper than just "Whats the risk, my facepic is public already". Oh and this has nothing to do with minor and wont protect them in any way - only way to protect them is to take internet access away. The internet is not a child-friendly place and wasn't built by or for children. We should not bend to make it child friendly as it will destroy the internet in the long term.

Barathkanna 9mo ago

I get why this exists and appreciate the transparency, but it still feels like a slippery middle ground. Age prediction avoids hard ID checks, which is good for privacy, yet it also normalizes behavioral inference about users that can be wrong in subtle ways. I’m supportive of the safety goal, but long term I’m more comfortable with systems that rely on explicit user choice and clear guardrails rather than probabilistic profiling, even if that’s messier to implement

TimByte 9mo ago

The selfie re-verification escape hatch helps, but it also quietly normalizes "prove you're an adult to get full functionality," which is a pretty big shift from how most software has worked historically

lunias 9mo ago

We need better local models. I'm so ready to done with all these services and just do what I want, how I want, on my own hardware / network.

nullc 9mo ago
We need the commodification of higher dram GPUs. The effect of masses of people using a thing can't exist until the hardware is ubiquitous.
- lunias 9mo ago
  True, but I've been consistently amazed by the improvements of the software in such a short amount of time (even running on the same hardware). I only have 8GB of VRAM, but it's amazing what I can do with those 8GB compared to a year or two ago.

sjs382 9mo ago

Worldcoin didn't gain any traction so now this?