Roblox CEO David Baszucki on AI Age Verification and Trusted Connections

Roblox's New Age Verification System

• 💡 Roblox is implementing a new AI-powered age verification system using selfies to estimate user ages.
• 🎯 This feature aims to enable a new "trusted connections" functionality for users aged 13-17.
• 🔑 The goal is to allow teens to communicate more freely with friends they know and trust, while still scanning text for critical harms.

AI and Safety on Roblox

• 🧠 Roblox has been developing AI for over four years, running more than 200 AI systems, and has advanced its state-of-the-art in text and voice moderation.
• ⚠️ The age estimation AI is designed to be conservative, prioritizing safety to enable freer communication within monitored environments.
• ✅ Historically, all text, voice, and image content on Roblox has undergone moderation, combining AI and human efforts.

"Grow a Garden" and Player Engagement

• 🚀 The game "Grow a Garden" recently set a record with over 20 million concurrent players, highlighting the desire for social interaction within games.
• 💬 This new age verification feature will allow players like those in "Grow a Garden" to communicate more freely with trusted connections, reducing the likelihood of them moving to less monitored platforms.
• 📈 Roblox aims to capture 10% of the market by focusing on safety and civility, viewing this age-based communication as the future for social platforms.

Roblox's Infrastructure and Scale

• 📊 Roblox has invested in building its own global data centers for better performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency.
• ☁️ During peak times, Roblox also utilizes cloud partners like Azure, Amazon AWS, and GCP to handle traffic bursts.
• 📈 The platform recently achieved over 30 million concurrent players, with "Grow a Garden" reaching over 20 million concurrently, a potential record for any game in history.