AI Insights

YouTube backlash begins: “Why is AI combing through every single video I watch?”

Published

1 month ago

August 12, 2025

Among concerned users fighting to block AI age checks is the petition starter, an anonymous YouTuber who runs a monetized account exploring video game lore called “Gerfdas Gaming” (who, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll refer to as Gerfdas).

Gerfdas told Ars that YouTube’s appeal process “raises major privacy concerns,” leaving YouTubers wondering, “where is this sensitive data stored, and how secure is it?”

“If YouTube suffers a breach, people’s names, IDs, and faces could end up in the wrong hands,” Gerfdas suggested.

Gerfdas also takes issue with the AI age verification system itself, noting that any monetized account already shares personal information with YouTube, but it’s disturbing to think that the AI is scanning every user’s viewing habits in the background just to catch some kids improperly using the platform. Several commenters on the petition noted that the AI age checks seemed to be created mainly to appease parents who struggle to police their own kids’ viewing habits, repeatedly asking, “Isn’t this why they made YouTube Kids?”

“Even without requesting ID, why is an AI combing through every single video I watch?” Gerfdas posited. “As an adult, I should be able to watch what I want within the law—and if the viewer is a child, that responsibility belongs to their parents, not a corporation.”

YouTube did not respond to multiple requests to comment and so far has not acknowledged Gerfdas’ petition. But Gerfdas is hoping that enough backlash may force YouTube to rethink its AI age checks, telling Ars that “even if they don’t respond right away, we’ll keep making noise until they do.”

Adult YouTubers defend childish viewing habits

As Ars monitored, hundreds of self-described YouTubers joined Gerfdas’ petition hourly. Gerfdas told Ars the petition’s popularity suggested that “this isn’t just a YouTube issue.” As age checks become more commonplace across the Internet due to regulatory pressure globally, people motivated to defend digital freedom are balking and increasingly banding together, Gerfdas said.

Source link

AI Insights

Google’s top AI scientist says ‘learning how to learn’ will be next generation’s most needed skill

Published

42 minutes ago

September 12, 2025

The Editors

ATHENS, Greece — A top Google scientist and 2024 Nobel laureate said Friday that the most important skill for the next generation will be “learning how to learn” to keep pace with change as Artificial Intelligence transforms education and the workplace.

Speaking at an ancient Roman theater at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s DeepMind, said rapid technological change demands a new approach to learning and skill development.

“It’s very hard to predict the future, like 10 years from now, in normal cases. It’s even harder today, given how fast AI is changing, even week by week,” Hassabis told the audience. “The only thing you can say for certain is that huge change is coming.”

The neuroscientist and former chess prodigy said artificial general intelligence — a futuristic vision of machines that are as broadly smart as humans or at least can do many things as well as people can — could arrive within a decade. This, he said, will bring dramatic advances and a possible future of “radical abundance” despite acknowledged risks.

Hassabis emphasized the need for “meta-skills,” such as understanding how to learn and optimizing one’s approach to new subjects, alongside traditional disciplines like math, science and humanities.

“One thing we’ll know for sure is you’re going to have to continually learn … throughout your career,” he said.

The DeepMind co-founder, who established the London-based research lab in 2010 before Google acquired it four years later, shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing AI systems that accurately predict protein folding — a breakthrough for medicine and drug discovery.

Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, left, and Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s artificial intelligence research company DeepMind discuss the future of AI, ethics and democracy during an event at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, in Athens, Greece, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. Credit: AP/Thanassis Stavrakis

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis joined Hassabis at the Athens event after discussing ways to expand AI use in government services. Mitsotakis warned that the continued growth of huge tech companies could create great global financial inequality.

“Unless people actually see benefits, personal benefits, to this (AI) revolution, they will tend to become very skeptical,” he said. “And if they see … obscene wealth being created within very few companies, this is a recipe for significant social unrest.”

Mitsotakis thanked Hassabis, whose father is Greek Cypriot, for rescheduling the presentation to avoid conflicting with the European basketball championship semifinal between Greece and Turkey. Greece later lost the game 94-68.

Source link