Google plans to develop Gemini Artificial Intelligence Chatbot next week for children under the age of 13 with Google accounts managed by parents, as technology companies are struggling to attract new AI users.
“Gemini applications will soon be available for your child,” the company said in an email this week to an 8 -year -old parent. “This means that your child will be able to use Gemini” to ask questions, get home help and create stories.
Chatbot will be available in children whose parents use a family link, a Google service that allows families to create gmail and choose services such as YouTube for their child. To register for a child account, parents provide the technological company personal data such as their child’s name and date of birth.
Gemini has specific protective messages for younger users from preventing Chatbot from producing certain unsafe content, said Karl Ryan, a Google spokesman. When a child with a family link uses Gemini, he added, the company will not use this data to train its AI
Gemini’s introduction to children could accelerate the use of chatbots between a vulnerable population, as schools, colleges, companies and others face the effects of popular AI genetic technologies. Trained in huge amounts of data, these systems can produce human text and realistic images and videos.
Google and other AI Chatbot developers are locked in intense competition to capture new users. President Trump recently called on schools to adopt teaching and learning tools. Millions of teenagers are already using chatbots as study aids, writing coaches and virtual partners. Children’s groups warn that chatbots could create serious risks to children’s safety. Bots also sometimes make things up.
UNICEF, United Nation’s children’s service and other groups of children noted that AI systems could confuse, deform and manipulate young children who may find it difficult to understand that chatbots are not human.
“Genetic AI has produced dangerous content,” UNICEF’s Global Research Office said in a position on AI’s dangers and opportunities.
Google has recognized some dangers at its email to families this week, warning parents that “Gemini can make mistakes” and indicating that they “help your child to critically think” about Chatbot.
Email also recommends parents to teach their child how to control Gemini’s answers. And the company suggested parents remind their child that “Gemini are not people” and “not to enter sensitive or personal information to the twin”.
Despite the company’s efforts to filter inappropriate material, e -mail added, children “can come across content that you do not want to see”.
Over the years, technological giants have developed a variety of products, features and guarantees for adolescents and children. In 2015, Google introduced YouTube Kids, an autonomous video application for children who are popular among infant families.
Other efforts to attract children to the internet have caused concerns from government officials and supporters of the children. In 2021, Meta stopped plans to introduce an Instagram Kids service – a version of the Instagram app that was intended for those under the age of 13 – after the general lawyers of several dozen states sent a letter to the company saying that the company “Historically failed to protect the prosperity of children”.
Some prominent technology companies-including Google, Amazon and Microsoft-have also paid fines of many millions of dollars to settle government complaints that they have violated the law on the protection of children’s privacy. This federal law requires electronic services aimed at children to obtain a parent’s permission before collecting personal information, such as a home address or a selfie, from a child under 13 years of age.
Under the Gemini Rollout, kids with Google family accounts will initially have access to Chatbot on their own. But the company said it would warn parents and that parents could then handle their child’s chatbot settings, “including disabling access”.
“Your child will be able to access Gemini applications soon,” the company’s email told parents. “We will also let you know when your child has access to Gemini for the first time.”
Mr Ryan, a Google spokesman, said the approach to providing twin users has complied with the federal private privacy law of children.
