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Artificial Intelligence and children of today
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- The story: Like all fundamental technological change, AI is not only changing what humans can do, it is shaping our behaviours, our preferences, our perceptions of the world and of ourselves. Children and adolescents of today are born into a world increasingly powered by virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI).
- Various issues: Not everyone can tap into the opportunities offered by this transformation. According to UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as many as two-thirds of the world’s children do not have access to the Internet at home.
- Unless societies take rapid and concerted action to close this digital divide, AI will radically amplify societal inequalities among children of different races, socio-economic background, genders, and regions.
- The expansion and deployment of AI is far outpacing our ability to understand its implications, especially its impact on children. Elders themselves hardly understand the complexity of technology which is preventing us to equip children and young people with the knowledge, tools and awareness to protect themselves
- While video gaming and chat forums offer an online space for children to socialise with their friends, multiple reports identify such virtual playgrounds as “honeypots” for child predators.
- Short of banning screen time entirely, parents are hard-pressed to keep tabs on just what their kids are doing online, and with whom. With online homework and both the parents working, this oversight has become even more difficult.
- AI systems driving many video games and social networks are designed to keep children hooked, both through algorithms and gimmicks like “streaks”, “likes”, infinite scroll, etc. Even if this is an ancillary consequence of the underlying business model, the damage is done — children, from a tender age through adolescence, are becoming digitally addicted.
- Social problems: Right when they need to be learning concentration skills, emotional and social intelligence, the digital addiction is causing children’s attention to be spliced into ever-thinner slices, and increasingly virtualising their social interactions. Similarly, right when children and youth are forming their initial views of the world, they are being sucked into virtual deep space, including the universe of fake news, conspiracy theories, hype, hubris, online bullying, hate speech and the likes
- Limited view range: An echo chamber is an environment (aided by AI) where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own. Echo chambers can create misinformation and distort a person’s perspective so they have difficulty considering opposing viewpoints and discussing complicated topics. AI powered toys can offer playful and creative opportunities for children, with some even promoting enhanced literacy, social skills and language development. However, they also listen and observe our children, soaking up their data, and with no framework to govern its use
- What next: The next phase of the fourth Industrial Revolution must include an overwhelming push to extend Internet access to all children. Governments, private sector, civil society, parents and children must push hard for this now, before AI further deepens the pre-existing inequalities and creates its own disparities. To mitigate on-line harms, a multi-pronged action plan is needed
- we need legal and technological safeguards
- we need greater awareness among parents, guardians and children on how AI works behind the scenes
- we need tools, like trustworthy certification and rating systems, to enable sound choices on safe AI apps
- we need to ban anonymous accounts
- we need enforceable ethical principles of non-discrimination and fairness embedded in the policy and design of AI systems
- we need “do no harm” risk assessments for all algorithms that interact with children or their data.
- we need safe online spaces for children, without algorithmic manipulation and with restricted profiling and data collection.
- we need online tools (and an online culture) that helps prevent addiction, that promotes attention-building skills, that expands children’s horizons, understanding and appreciation for diverse perspectives, and that builds their social emotional learning capabilities.
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