What you should know
- Google has opened up access to Bard for teenagers with safety guardrails in place
- Bard has been trained to recognize inappropriate content and has safety features implemented
- Before launching Bard to younger people, advice from child safety and development experts was used to help shape the content policies and an experience that prioritizes safety
- FOSI’s research found that most teens and parents expect that GenAI skills will be an important part of their future
Full Story
Introducing Bard, Google’s new language model designed specifically for teenagers. With safety guardrails in place, Bard is now available to most countries around the world, meeting the minimum age requirement to manage their own Google Account and have English as their primary language. According to an announcement blog post from Google, Bard has been trained to recognize inappropriate content for younger users and has implemented safety features and guardrails to prevent unsafe content from appearing. In fact, when a teen asks a fact-based question for the first time, Bard will automatically run a double-check response feature to ensure the accuracy of its response. Google has consulted with child safety and development experts to shape the content policies and prioritize safety before launching Bard to younger audiences. The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) has advised Google on how to keep the needs of teens and families in mind, and FOSI’s research has found that most teens and parents expect AI skills to be an important part of their future. Stephen Balkam, Founder & CEO of FOSI, believes that Google’s thoughtful approach to expanding Bard access to teens is an important step in offering teens the opportunity to explore this technology with the appropriate safeguards in place.
