Former Google Executive Warns AI Poses Severe Risks to Children

Tom Siegel, the former vice president of trust and safety at Google, has called for a slowdown in artificial intelligence development to protect children. Joining Common Sense Media on September 22 as the first executive director of the Youth AI Safety Institute, Siegel warned that AI poses more severe risks than social media, including psychosis, suicide, and cognitive offloading, where critical thinking declines due to over-reliance on technology.

Siegel argues that the tech industry is repeating past mistakes and cannot be trusted to self-regulate. He proposes the creation of independent safety standards for AI tools, comparing the need for such oversight to car crash testing. Specifically, he urged OpenAI and Anthropic to implement more robust age verification and called for Google to provide a toggle to disable AI features in search for minors to avoid future lawsuits and heavy regulation.

In response, Google defended its AI search features as useful tools for learning and stated that its products undergo rigorous testing. OpenAI noted that it uses account and behavioral signals to identify underage users, though it admitted that no single age-assurance method is perfect. The Youth AI Safety Institute is backed by Anthropic and the OpenAI Foundation.