Von der Leyen has made online child safety a core priority of her second mandate as head of the EU executive.
The institute will be presented in Copenhagen on Tuesday, with von der Leyen scheduled to give a speech. Other big-ticket names backing the institute include former European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and AI “godfather” Yoshua Bengio.
Experts at the Youth AI Safety Institute will test AI products to inform parents and policymakers on potential harms for children, the organizers told POLITICO. The initiative is run by U.S.-based non-profit Common Sense Media, which already tests movies, series, books and games to provide age ratings.
“The first set of standards and evaluations we will publish will be focused on the most severe harms” such as “suicide and self harm, eating disorders, dangerous advice,” said Bruce Reed, head of AI at Common Sense Media who previously advised former President Joe Biden on AI policy.
Danish politician Vestager, who ran digital policy at the European Commission during its last mandate, said in an interview that “this is really a bold move” to monitor and scrutinize harm to kids from AI “instead of saying it’s too difficult [and resorting to] keeping kids away from AI forever.”
The work to scrutinize products and publish evaluations will be conducted with San Francisco research lab Transluce, non-profit Humane Intelligence and Stanford Brainstorm, the university’s lab for mental health innovation.