Managing your child’s screen time and keeping the dinner table phone-free can feel like more than enough digital-related stress. AI though? That brings with it all new potential terrors that lots of parents would, understandably, rather ignore. But if we’re to protect our children and help them navigate AI, we must get to grips with it, say the experts.
“There is a fear of the unknown because AI is moving so quickly, potentially moving faster than childhood itself,” says Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at software company ESET. “We’ve got parents who don’t necessarily understand AI, and then we’ve got children growing up with it.”
This leaves a gap, and parents can end up being “pushed further and further” away from the new technology. “We don’t want a world of technophobe parents,” says Moore. “We want parents to understand what their kids are going through.”
“Parents do need to be alert, but not alarmed [by AI],” says Yasmin London, child digital safety and wellbeing lead at digital safeguarding firm Qoria. “They need to develop their own AI literacy on what their kids might be exposed to.”
Big tech used to be interested in the ‘attention economy’, but now it’s moving into the ‘attachment economy’, which is where AI companions come in. Sites like Nomi are being used by kids to “create any avatar they want and use that avatar as a friend,” explains London. “Kids perhaps who are vulnerable, feeling lonely, struggling with self-esteem or real-world relationships, might find themselves attracted to a chatbot like that because they constantly reiterate positive comments to them and mirror and validate them,” she continues. “While that can seem nice for them in the beginning, it can isolate kids further, and cause concerns around their critical thinking ability and relationship skills.”
2. Deepfakes
Parents might have heard about Grok, but kids have been using AI for some time to create images, “whether for fun or more malicious purposes, and sometimes those are sexual in nature, which could lead them down a very problematic route with legalities,” says London. “They’re not always intended to harm, but the outcome for a victim, if there’s a deepfake created of them in an embarrassing position, something that might perhaps even be defamatory, that can be a really big problem.”
3. Unrealistic beauty standards
“AI definitely disproportionately impacts young girls,” flags London. “A lot of them follow Instagram accounts that are just an AI avatar, but they look so hyper-realistic, girls still compare themselves to these unrealistic beauty standards.” This can “impact their worldview, their wellbeing”.
4. Misinformation
For boys, there’s fears around them being “sucked into a manosphere, radicalisation and incel culture”. “AI can certainly be used to scale harm in those ways, as well as to share fake information,” says London. “If a young person starts to search for that content over and over again, like any other AI, it will learn what they like, and start to share whatever information is fed into it, which may or may not be very accurate.”
How to protect your kids
The first thing to do, says Moore, is: “Download every app your kids are using, whether you like it or not. Start with things like Snapchat.” It might feel like you’re awkwardly trying to get down with the kids, but “if you adapt and communicate with your kids on the apps they are using, they will actually have more respect for you. And then, if you go through the settings, you might just be able to offer them a few tips on their privacy and security, which, if you’ve got the app, it’s much easier to talk about because you’re talking in their language and saying the right things”.
From there, you can move into trickier areas like AI. “Let’s all learn together, regardless of what generation you are,” says Moore.
London also recommends parents apply the ‘ABC model’. “A stands for managing access. So for kids, if they’re using an AI, firstly, let’s make sure it’s age-appropriate, so young kids certainly shouldn’t be using chatbots, ChatGPT and companion apps if we can avoid it,” she notes. “B stands for boundaries, and this is the difficult thing for all parents, but it’s about implementing and staying consistent with rules around technology use, whether it be AI, gaming or messaging.
“C is for communication,” she continues. “Having safe, trusted adults they can speak to is the number one protective factor when it comes to the online world.”
Try to be open to AI too. “Your children are likely going to have jobs that incorporate AI, so by learning it now, when they need your help, you’ll be able to understand what their troubles might be, or how to make their life more efficient,” encourages Moore.
And London warns against demonising new tech, as banning it can push your kids away from you, not AI. “We know that we thrive as humans when we’re active, out in nature, having a real life laugh with our friends,” she says. “It’s all about balance.”
