- Much is discussed about AI’s impact on the world of work, but not enough about how it could affect children’s development.
- Within decades, children will be navigating a reality intertwined with AI, where the real is indistinguishable from the artificial.
- Everyone from policymakers to educators must play an active role in steering AI’s development in a positive and healthy way.
The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has fuelled exuberant predictions about the end of work as we know it. At the same time, it has sparked anxiety around the ethical concerns about the use of such technology, as well as its psychological impact on workers.
While most of this attention has focused on businesses and humans at work, far too few of these discussions have centered on how AI may impact the development of children – the generation it’s likely to affect most profoundly.
In an indication of how great a challenge this may prove to be, a recent UC Irvine study found that children between three and six years old already believed that smart devices have thoughts and feelings.
Imagine a world five generations from now, where AI-generated experiences seamlessly blend with everyday life and children will be navigating a reality so intertwined with AI that the lines between the real and the artificial become almost indistinguishable.
AI: A bright future with a dark side?
Today, AI holds great promise for children and their well-being, with benefits ranging from medical and healthcare advances to better learning outcomes. By helping humans predict natural calamities or human-made crises with more accuracy, it can also help more children reach adulthood and lead safer lives.
However, despite its benefits, AI also comes with major risks to children and the future of humanity as a whole. For starters, AI not only consumes a lot of water, electricity and critical minerals to run, it also produces hazardous waste – and there’s still much to learn about its true environmental impact.
In addition, the digital divide between urban and rural communities, both in developed and developing countries, is already stark. How are we preparing for the increasing digital inequalities that will surely arise from the adoption of AI?
This is a question we strive to address at Save the Children, for instance, though our Safe Digital Childhood Coalition. This global initiative aims to advance digital inclusion, protect children’s right to equitable access to technology, and promote the skills needed to thrive as digital citizens.
Let’s not forget the heavy risk of AI being harnessed by authoritarian regimes and groups for repressive purposes such as suppressing people’s freedoms or increasing censorship and propaganda. AI can already easily amplify manipulative information and produce fake content, and it’s children who are most vulnerable to being manipulated or abused in these environments – posing long-term negative effects on their development and well-being.
All these risks increase dramatically because we have severely underinvested in building critical thinking skills from school to university and disagree on how or whether to regulate AI. Amid debates about the challenges of regulation and opposition to it, regulation will certainly lag behind the fast-evolving reality of AI.
This leads us to ask: what is the path forward? The answer is action.
How to protect children’s rights in an AI-enabled world
As debates about AI continue, we all have an active role to play – from policymakers to educators – in steering its usage and development in a positive and healthy way. Ultimately, this is a strategic investment to ensure upcoming generations are well-prepared.
What is the Forum doing to improve online safety?
Here are three actions we can take to protect children’s rights in a world where AI will play an increasingly important role:
- Advocate with lawmakers to increase funding for the development of critical thinking skills in early years education. Critical thinking is indispensable to free elections and fair societies. AI’s advancement shouldn’t come at the expense of human, value-based critical thinking. This advocacy also entails a collaboration between participatory citizens, policymakers, non-profits and the business community to ensure that AI systems are not controlled ideologically, fostering inclusion of a plurality of views, voices and population groups. This is fundamental to safeguarding freedom and minimizing bias in the future communities and societies that today’s children will one day shape.
- Engage with education boards, school systems and teachers to ensure AI does not crowd out developing skills for self-sufficiency. Parents especially have a non-abdicable duty to protect children’s right to become self-reliant and resilient. Save the Children’s longstanding experience working in early education across the globe has proven time and again that early intervention is key to giving children the foundation to thrive as learners and in life. AI is no different; it’s here to stay, so it’s vital to teach children how to be safe when using it.
- Invest to embrace the AI transformation. Organizations – from businesses and schools to academia and the non-profit sector – should intentionally devote time and resources in preparing and adapting to the AI world. This strategic investment is critical to making sure we’re ready to harness this emerging technology’s power and minimize its downsides. At Save the Children, we’ve launched an AI Steering Committee to oversee and guide AI initiatives. But it’s not only about what we can do to adapt today, but about how AI can be leveraged to maximize a positive impact for children as the technology continues to evolve.
While approaches to AI will continue to vary, any discussion about it should include a seat for children and their interests at the table to encourage viewing problems and their solutions from their perspective.
We lack a clear path for how to develop AI that advances humanity without harming it. But this has been true of any new technology in history. Embracing a child-centric view of artificial intelligence has the potential to help us minimize risks and amplify the potential of AI for good.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/02/children-discussions-about-ai/
