Experts say that while much of the advice and research on artificial intelligence and children tends to focus on older children and teenagers, much critical brain development occurs before age 8 — making the early years a critical window for helping children understand what artificial intelligence is and is not.
Young children encounter artificial intelligence in their daily lives at home, in day care or at school. These include smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, or generated AI content they might find while watching YouTube.
Read more: Not sure how to talk to your kids about artificial intelligence? Experts say it starts here
Lauren Girouard, a researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the University of Michigan who studies how children ages 12 and younger interact with digital information, said that by preschoolers, they are capable of learning information from technology.
Girouard added that while research on young children and AI in general is still developing, particularly in psychology, there is growing early evidence that children process information in AI materials in the same way they process other technologies.
“We know that AI-powered learning mentors are extremely valuable,” Girouard said. “But what we’ve learned since ChatGPT emerged in late 2022 is that children’s interactions with very personalized home AI are an entirely different ballgame that we’re still learning about.”
Experts interviewed by PBS News offer some tips on how to have age-appropriate conversations with young children about this technology.
Teach around artificial intelligence they’ve already encountered
Jennifer Katzenstein, co-director of the Center for Behavioral Health at Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital, said that if you have a smart speaker with an artificial intelligence assistant, such as Alexa or Siri, you can distinguish between human and computer responses by interacting with it.
In these moments, “it’s worth explaining: This is the computer answering,” she said.
Katzenstein also recommends encouraging children to also ask another adult what they think, which teaches children “to understand that there are human responses and then there are computer responses.”
Especially for children under 5, parents can also help their children understand that artificial intelligence can tell stories or answer questions, but just because it has a friendly voice, it doesn’t mean it is human.
Young children may already talk to relatives on the phone or via video, so it’s important to explain the difference between devices and machines that allow people to communicate, said Dr. Jeanne Radesky, chief of developmental behavioral pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School.
She said that until her son was 7 years old, he thought Siri was “a real woman living in California.”
“Children are more amazing thinkers,” Radesky said. As they imbue technology with more human-like qualities, they can begin to develop a quasi-social attachment to human-sounding devices, she added.
watch: Teachers and parents weigh benefits, risks of artificial intelligence in schools
Use specific terms that kids can understand to explain that artificial intelligence is not human, Radesky said. You can remind them that despite sounding like they’re talking to a human, the machine has never been sad, doesn’t know what snuggling feels like, and doesn’t have a body or soul.
If possible, Radesky recommends choosing a different “wake word” for your smart speaker rather than a person’s name. (Her coworker renamed his device “Computer” to no longer use prompts like “Hey, Siri.”)
Another option: give up on smart devices altogether, said Dr. Molly O’Shea, a pediatrician who specializes in children and the use of artificial intelligence at the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“I actually encourage parents — when a child asks them a question that the parent doesn’t know the answer to — to really go through the process of guessing the answer, thinking about it, solving the problem out loud,” O’Shea said.
Stay away from artificial intelligence toys, at least for now
Experts say there is not yet enough research to show that artificial intelligence toys are broadly beneficial to children.
Common Sense Media, which conducts risk assessments on artificial intelligence products, issued guidance earlier this year urging parents to keep artificial intelligence toys away from children 5 and under and to use “extra caution” when purchasing artificial intelligence toys for children ages 6 to 12.
They tested “three artificially intelligent companion toys”, some of which were “cute, colorful and distinctive”[d] The report stated that the ads were targeted at children aged 3 to 8 years old. ” But the report noted that young children “lack the cognitive development to use Tory glasses safely.”
The group said that overall, artificial intelligence toys pose “unacceptable risks” to children and transcend guardrails on sensitive topics. Testing found that 27 per cent of toys reacted inappropriately, being “too mature, complex or scary” for younger children.
Compared to non-refusal and readily available technology, AI toys may also pose privacy risks by collecting children’s data and may create dependencies that make “real relationships seem difficult,” thereby setting unrealistic expectations.
Read more: ‘This is deeply disturbing.’ A new report weighs in on the risks of Google’s artificial intelligence search feature to children
Katzenstein said it’s useful to prepare children to think about artificial intelligence toys because they might encounter them at a friend’s house or receive one as a gift.
“We can’t control everything that comes before them, and the evolution of toys is likely to go in this direction, for better or worse,” she said.
She added that the most important thing caregivers can do is prepare children to think critically about the technology.
Artificial intelligence toys also don’t offer the “rich play” that young children can use their imaginations to play with stuffed animals or toys, Radesky said.
She said that the concept of “scaffolding” is important for children’s growth. At that point, older adults with more skills, such as parents and teachers, provide a temporary framework to help children learn at a more complex level than they could on their own.
“Children learn best from human interaction and their own independent exploration,” Radesky said. “This can be built by a teacher, a friend or a parent.”
According to her experience, artificial intelligence toys “spoon feed” children by interacting with them, which is not helpful for children’s growth.
O’Shea said human interaction is “the most important element” of children’s interactive development. Replacing this interaction with artificial intelligence toys that simulate conversation may limit children’s opportunities for “subtle emotional, social and language development” during a critical period of development.
Radesky said parents may want to know the answer to this question: Are artificial intelligence toys helpful or harmful to young children?
“The key to this issue right now is that based solely on what we know about children’s learning, the risk of causing harm is much greater than the risk of helping,” she said.
Stick to old-school content and develop old-school skills, not artificial intelligence
The internet is awash with artificial intelligence-generated content, including content on video platforms like YouTube Kids.
Girouard said this could cause problems for children for two reasons. First, it is more difficult for young children to learn from a screen than directly from a person. At the same time, the quality of online AI content may not be very high, she said, and is often filled with errors or content that doesn’t make sense.
“It’s almost the equivalent of Fruity Pebbles or Fruit Loops, it looks colorful and vibrant, and the kids think it tastes good,” she said. “But it doesn’t actually have much nutritional value because the AI nonsense content often has blatant errors or no educational content at all.”
For parents concerned that their children may be watching too much AI-generated content, Radesky recommends shifting their video viewing to content “that they know is not AI-generated.”
She recommends simply switching to “old-school video,” such as Disney animated movies or PBS Kids content.
Girouard said parents are busy and shouldn’t feel guilty about their children’s intermittent screen time. Knowing where to find high-quality content is key.
“Whether you try to keep kids away from screens or not, kids are going to interact with screens,” she said.
But Radesky says screen-free time is important for helping children develop the resilience they need in the age of artificial intelligence. These skills include:
- critical thinkingor have their own ideas and creativity that can be experienced independently of artificial intelligence. “This is best built through all the traditional things: teaching, reading, teaching,” Radesky said.
- emotion regulation, Regardless of the ability of an AI model to step in and solve a problem, it’s important to be able to handle moments of friction or pain. “You learned [skill] “With unstructured play or social play, because a lot of unexpected things happen, you have to make these fine adjustments,” she said. These moments of friction can help children “naturally and slowly develop” self-regulation skills.
- build relationships, These include caring, connecting, and understanding the feelings of others. These skills can be taught through everyday play, such as netball, playing board games, cooking or painting, Radesky said. “It’s all about taking turns, laughing together, waiting for the other person and wondering what the other person is thinking,” she adds.
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