SAFETY CHIEF SPEAKS ON AI HARM TO CHILDREN – Tom Siegel warns AI advancement could be more harmful than social media
The founder of the trust and safety team at Alphabet’s Google called for a slowdown in AI development, warning that the tech industry was repeating the same mistakes from the social media era, potentially causing even greater harm to children.
Tom Siegel’s concerns mirror a growing concern among some tech insiders and academic researchers that AI poses a deeper threat to children than social media did, at a time when the industry is racing to add increasingly advanced features to chatbots that millions of young people already use daily.
Siegel also announced that he had joined Common Sense Media, a children’s online advocacy group. The non-profit, established in 2003, conducts research and reviews the suitability of various media for children. In May, it launched the Youth AI Safety Institute, a research organization to assess kids’ AI use, for which Siegel will serve as the first executive director.
