# Roblox has used AI to moderate content for years Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/roblox-has-used-ai-to-moderate-content-for-years/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy. - Speaker: [David Baszucki](https://realalpha.app/people/david-baszucki/) · David Baszucki is co-founder and CEO of Roblox. · Co-founded Roblox and has led it as CEO since 2004, serving more than 100M daily users. - Host: [David Senra](https://realalpha.app/people/david-senra/) · Host, Founders · Has read an entrepreneur's biography every week for Founders since 2016. - Show: Founders - Episode: [Roblox’s David Baszucki Built the Biggest Playground on Earth](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/), Apr 26, 2026 - Moment: 1:02:23 to 1:06:58 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/roblox-has-used-ai-to-moderate-content-for-years/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3743 ## Quote > “we were pushing very early AI, BERT models, primitive-type models, **to drive safety**.” > — [David Baszucki](https://realalpha.app/people/david-baszucki/) at [1:05:22](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3922) · Founders ## Takeaways 1. Models review content, images and communication across the platform. 2. Age checks were a company decision, not a response to a new law. 3. Baszucki sees sustained safety work as a competitive moat. ## About this segment Roblox ran AI models over content and communication for years, and David Baszucki says age checks were a proactive choice. He sees safety as a technical capability that can set the platform apart. From “Roblox’s David Baszucki Built the Biggest Playground on Earth”, Apr 26, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/) ## Transcript Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there. [1:02:29](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3749) And we're literally racing to build that. You mentioned safety a few times. Ho Nam, when we had dinner to prep for this, he said something interesting that you have been, essentially, it's the biggest playground in the world, right? One way to think about this. Biggest playground in the world. Obviously, it's the safest playground in the world, but it's also huge. So there's going to be some kind of, you know, issues that come up. [1:02:50](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3770) but he actually was saying like the investments you guys have been making for seven eight ten years around safety and ai way before anybody else was you're getting so good at it it's it's actually a moat because over time it's going to get safer and safer that's really beautiful that he said that you know we um we've seen this in self-driving and we're not going to claim we're self-driving but in self-driving say self-driving ends up being 40 times safer than the average human when there is a self-driving incident in the news you don't hear that it's just like self-driving kind of thing i do believe um the the pressure we get in a good way from the media from this from that is an incredible um motivator for that moat we the vast majority of what we've done on safety and civility we've done on our own kind of in a visionary way i'd say age check we [1:03:48](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3828) We made the call on our own. It's not because of laws or anything like that, but the ultimate mode and the ultimate belief of what is going to be possible. We're going to know the age of everyone, we have AI. systems, watching content, watching communication, we're banding things, we're not sharing images, all of that. It's an enormous opportunity. And I think we, more and more, you know, we're starting to say, look, we know what the gold standard for safety is. We're building it. [1:04:18](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3858) We're pretty far along. We're actually starting now to see other companies say, oh, maybe we should do what Roblox has done. Or seeing more and more governments say, we like where you're going with this, like, this is really cool. So I'm really optimistic about, you know, having this force of innovation and what we're doing there. Okay, but is this something that you've been building and compounding since your co-founder? [1:04:42](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3882) All the way since we built the first moderation system. Like the first year or two into that. Okay, explain what, like, can you, I don't know if you can talk about this publicly, like what have you built to make it? I think we have seen AI as more consistent over time and scales more than humans and so the ability to run every asset everything on the platform through ai all content image everything everyone's building everything everyone's saying it just get better and better and better at that it's just been an enormous thing and and so when we you know the part of ai is is very much the human facing thing like oh i've got an ai prompt or i can do all of that. Behind the scenes, though, at Roblox, for many, many years, we were pushing very early AI, BERT models, primitive-type models, to drive safety. So I do believe it's a mode, [1:05:37](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3937) and I do believe we've done something very unique in that what's going on out there right now is we're very upfront. Like, we do have people under 13 on our platform. It's an enormous responsibility. We focus on, once again, all of the aspects of how they play and learn and do things. But that's very different than being some other platform that says, oh yeah, it's okay. No one's under 13. We're good. And so I do think long-term leaning in and being part of that is an enormous capability. Something came to mind when you said, you know, now other companies are looking at what we've done in this and like, hey, I want some of that too. Would you ever sell this kind of technology to other companies? I think it's worth thinking about. Like I believe we will end up with the best AI tech for text, for voice, maybe for video, doing a wide range of [1:06:32](https://realalpha.app/v/osuOwvEhVfQ/?t=3992) safety things, either monitoring for critical harms, flagging, adjusting, all of that. It's not unreasonable to think we might do that. We've already started open sourcing some of our stuff. So there's a consortium actually with some various companies involved in safety. We've open sourced one of our voice models. We've open sourced one of our Sentinel models.