The Youngest AI Consumer
“When I was a child, the whole world was full of magic”
― Liang, Love, Death & Robots
Amazon’s leadership principle of Customer Obsession has long been a cherished guiding principle for successful ventures in Silicon Valley. “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.” In the age of AI, this principle takes the shape of personalization; personalized insurance, personalized education, personalized music, and individualized medicine are only a few examples of this strategy being realized in real-time.
All of these verticals have one common requirement: Personal data. Consumers must be willing to trade in their personal data for profound benefits, or risk getting left behind in the social arms race. When we envision the average AI consumer, we tend to picture someone who is like us. Specifically, we imagine someone the same age as us. However, with AI gunning to be the most pervasive technology known to mankind, we must consider the implications of this future and the youngest consumers to be affected by it: children.
AI On Child Development
AI undoubtedly harnesses great potential for children’s education and development. Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, asserted that "we're at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen”. AI-powered learning platforms like Khan Academy, DuoLingo, and Speak are critical drivers of education innovation and democratization, giving students the level of attention and hyper-personalized curriculums that were once only accessible to the upper echelon. Global Market Insights even suggests that the market value of AI in education will reach $20 billion by 2027.
With everything looking so positive, what could we worry about?
I decided to ask ChatGPT.
Education: excessive reliance on AI systems can lead to a lack of human interaction and empathy, which is crucial for social and emotional development.
Social Skills: AI-powered devices like virtual assistants and robots can affect a child's social skills and behavior. Children who spend too much time interacting with these devices may miss out on developing social skills, such as communication, empathy, and understanding nonverbal cues. Moreover, there is a risk of children treating these devices like real beings, which could lead to a lack of empathy for humans.
Cognitive Development: excessive use of AI-powered games and apps can hinder a child's imagination and creativity and lead to a dependence on technology.
Privacy and Safety: AI-powered devices and platforms can collect data and personal information about children, which can be used for targeted advertising or even sold to third parties. This can pose a threat to children's privacy and safety. For example, CloudPets teddy bears were withdrawn from the shelves in 2017 following a data breach that exposed private information including photos and recordings of more than two million children's voice messages.
AI on Self-Discipline
Child/human development goes beyond just the aspect of education. I’ve found the conversation around AI’s influence on self-discipline extremely fascinating. On one hand, personalized reminders, incentives, and feedback loops can help kids smoothly set and accomplish their goals. Conditioned correctly, they should be delighted to engage with AI to monitor their progress; an entirely gamified experience. Conditioned incorrectly, or even unintentionally, and they become undeveloped in their sense of self-discipline — addictive behaviors, sloth tendencies, an inability to derive innate motivations, and a loss of purpose are potential risks.
Negative Impact: AI-powered systems that make tasks easier and more convenient can also lead to a lack of self-discipline. For example, an AI-powered device that completes homework assignments for a child can encourage a reliance on technology and lead to a lack of self-discipline when it comes to completing tasks independently.
Unintended Consequences: AI systems can have unintended consequences that can impact a child's self-discipline. For example, AI algorithms that optimize social media feeds to show content that is most likely to engage a child can lead to addictive behavior and a lack of self-discipline when it comes to social media use.
AI On Agency
If you don’t believe in free will, then this section is not for you. If you do, then I hope you make some time to deliberate this topic. The most basic freedom of man is arguably his ability to act independently — his autonomy. Based on his own beliefs, values, and goals, he revels in his ability to exercise control and make decisions. AI can certainly empower children’s lives in this regard. For instance, smart homes and virtual assistants enable them to control various aspects of their environment with voice commands. This provides them with a sense of agency and control over our surroundings.
Negative Impact: AI-powered systems can also impact a child's sense of agency by limiting their choices or decision-making abilities. For example, AI-powered recommendation systems can suggest products or services based on a child's past behavior, which can limit their exposure to new experiences and ideas and lead to a sense of predictability and loss of agency.
Unintended Consequences: AI systems can have unintended consequences that can impact a child's sense of agency. For example, AI algorithms that optimize social media feeds to show content that is most likely to engage a child can lead to a narrowing of perspectives and a lack of agency when it comes to exposure to new ideas and viewpoints.
Protecting The Youngest Consumer
“The old magic may have been gone from the world, but I could make a new magic from their machines.” — Liang, Love, Death & Robots
It is imperative that we critically consider children’s safety, privacy, and right to data protection as we sprint to design and develop profitable AI systems. Despite their vulnerability in society, children are as much the target of capitalist interests as their adult counterparts. Recognizing this, UNICEF has collaborated with the World Economic Forum to develop policies on AI for children, including a series of recommendations that outline the essential guidelines for constructing AI systems and policies that uphold and safeguard the digital rights of children.
It is with hope and expectation that we begin to see similar policies appear from giants like OpenAI and Anthropic soon.