By David Gilbert
Publication Date: 2026-01-13 18:54:00
Just a few days later Roblox’s much-touted AI-powered age verification system is a complete mess when it launches.
Roblox’s facial scanning system, which estimates people’s ages before they can access the platform’s chat features, launched last week in the United States and other countries around the world after initially rolling out in some locations in December. Roblox says it is implementing the system to allow users to chat safely with users of similar ages.
But players are already up in arms over the inability to chat with their friends, developers are calling for Roblox to roll back the update, and, most importantly, experts say that not only is the AI failing young players as adults and vice versa, but that the system is doing little to address the problem it was designed to address: the flood of predators using the platform to groom young children.
In fact, WIRED found several examples of people advertising age-verified accounts on eBay for minors ages 9 and up for as little as $4.
According to WIRED…
