‘AI is not your friend’: Common Sense Media pushes ‘crash-test’ model for AI products used by kids

Common Sense Media’s new Youth AI Safety Institute is beginning work on what it hopes will become a crash-test-style model for artificial intelligence products used by children: independent standards, transparent evaluations and public pressure on companies to make youth-facing AI safer.

Geoffrey Fowler, head of public engagement for the Institute, said on Auburn University’s McCrary Institute Cyber Focus podcast that the effort is still in its early stages, but the need is urgent because children are adopting generative AI faster than earlier digital technologies.

“We need to be setting some standards for the ways that AI technologies should treat children,” Fowler said. “And then we need to hold these companies to account for them . ..because they shouldn’t be experimenting on our kids.”

Common Sense Media announced the Youth AI Safety Institute in May as an independent research and testing organization focused on whether AI products children use are safe and developmentally appropriate. The Institute plans to establish safety standards, build open-source evaluations for developers, independently test AI products and publish results. The initiative is working with researchers, educators, child-development specialists and medical experts to help shape the standards and evaluation methods it hopes to develop, including collaborations with Stanford Medicine’s Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation. 

For parents, Fowler said, AI presents a harder problem than earlier media because it is not static. Common Sense has long rated movies and other media, but a film does not change after its release. A chatbot or AI-enabled toy, though, can respond differently depending on the model, the prompt, the length of the conversation and even the emotional state of the user.

That dynamic nature matters because AI is increasingly being used for purposes that go far beyond search or information retrieval. Children and teens are turning to these tools for homework help, advice, companionship and, in some cases, emotional support.

“AI is not your friend,” Fowler said. “AI is not human. It does not make the kinds of choices that a human being would make when you’re having a bad day or when you’re in a crisis or when you need somebody to really trust.”

The Institute’s long-term goal, Fowler said, is not to tell parents to solve the problem alone, but to create public standards that shift incentives for companies.

“Our model here is crash testing cars,” Fowler said. “Cars have gotten much safer,” he added, because transparent safety ratings helped create “a race to the top.”

Fowler said that same accountability model is needed for AI products children use every day.

“The Common Sense Media Youth AI Safety Institute is neither pro AI nor anti AI,” he said. “It’s pro kid.”

You can find the full conversation and other Cyber Focus episodes wherever you get podcasts or at McCraryInstitute.com.