Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer to learn so that it can perform tasks that are typically done by people. AI is already deeply integrated into our modern lives. You interact with it every day, using voice assistants on smartphones, receiving personalized recommendations on streaming platforms, navigating with GPS, checking the weather on your phone, shopping online with product suggestions, and even managing smart home devices, pretty much making AI a ubiquitous part of your daily routines and decision-making processes.
Children start being aware of AI through exposure to media like Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, where algorithms make online content align with their own preferences, through experiences with AI-enabled devices at home, like Hey Google or Siri, and by using generative AI models, like ChatGPT to compose text and generate images. It is the child’s individual AI interactions that shapes their AI understanding.
Young children may share personal information with AI platforms, telling personal stories and disclosing details that grownups might consider private. One study found that kids between 3 and 6 years old believed that smart speakers had thoughts, feelings and social abilities.
When children talk about AI, they both describe it to be both a preprogrammed, human-made thing and, also, as something with human-like processes (like knowing and thinking). You see this when children describe AI with personal pronouns and/or as something that can understand and see them. Young children also tend to incorrectly see automated appliances in the home as having AI.
The rapid, and quite frankly, unstoppable, integration of AI in our daily lives has turned AI literacy into a vital and necessary skill set. This is why Digital Parents and Educators know to teach their kids AI literacy!
Tips:
- Discuss what AI or artificial intelligence is – and is not – with your child.
- Don’t use terms to describe AI that are playful to humanize AI. That can be very confusing for children.
- Remember, a child’s understanding of AI will be limited unless the child can correctly describe what AI is, what it is used for, how it works and why they think it is used.
Simply put, children need literacy in AI before they are using it in their everyday lives. Has your family discussed AI and how it impacts your lives? Try the conversation starters below!
Conversation Starters for Kids
- Ask your child to describe what AI is.
- Pick an example of AI that they have experienced and ask them:
- What is it used for?
- How does it work?
- Why do you think it is used?
- Ask your child to name some AI in the home.
- Ask your child to give both good and bad examples of AI use.
Learn More
- Young children’s understanding of AI
- What will be young children’s relationship with AI?
- How Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Affect Children?
- What Are You Talking To?: Understanding Children’s Perceptions of Conversational Agents
- Digital Parenting by the Ages
- Savvy Cyber Kids Featured Conversation Starters
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