We Asked Roblox’s C.E.O. About Child Safety. It Got Tense.

Hard Fork

The New York Times

Technology

4.5 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week the company announced that it would require users to undergo an A.I.-powered age estimation process in order to chat with others on the platform. Will this change reassure parents?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Casey, yeah.
0:02.2	You were in my dream last night.
0:03.6	I was.
0:04.5	Yes.
0:04.9	Now, normally I don't have sort of lucid, vivid dreams, but I've been taking melatonin,
0:10.0	which will mess you right up.
0:11.2	And last night, I had a dream that starred you in a central role.
0:15.6	So I'm not sure whether it was because we talked about space data centers last week,
0:20.2	but for some reason, this dream
0:22.3	involved you and me deciding to go in a rocket together into outer space.
0:27.4	Sure.
0:28.4	And for whatever reason, this was like a big national event, and like all of the living
0:33.4	presidents had like gathered to watch it.
0:36.3	Were Katie Perry and Lauren Sanchez on the rocket with us?
0:39.3	No, it was just the two of us.
0:40.8	And then at the last minute, I chickened out.
0:43.8	And so you went up on the rocket by yourself.
0:46.9	And I was sitting there like with like George W. Bush and Barack Obama and Bill Clinton
0:51.8	watching the like sort of live stream of you going up
0:54.6	this rocket.
0:55.5	And then here comes the sad part.
0:57.2	The rocket exploded.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.