A Paravelum commitment
The challenges that AI presents for children demand more than technical safeguards. They demand spaces that protect integral human development.
The challenges
What must be protected as technologies enter childhood.
We delegate cognitive functions to artificial intelligence. At first glance, this may seem like an efficient use of time; over time, it can weaken capacities such as creativity, critical thinking, ideation, problem-solving, synthesis and decision-making.
Social-media algorithms were organized around the attention economy: platforms competed to capture focus and keep us engaged. This is beginning to shift. Natural conversation with AI can reveal thoughts, desires, fears and problems, gradually forming a profile much closer to our interior life.
When a machine replicates verbal language, we can confuse exchanging messages with having a human conversation. Little by little, often unconsciously, we may begin to believe we are speaking with a person like ourselves.
Who can assure us that the intentions of large technology corporations are guided by ethical values? Platforms with immense productive power and incentives for enrichment can establish agendas that promote particular interests.
AI combines two capacities that were once much more separate: knowing a person’s context and generating a message specifically for them. This can enable forms of persuasion far more individualized than traditional advertising.
The challenge is no longer only that false information circulates. The cost of manufacturing apparently authentic evidence is falling dramatically.
A personalized AI can tend to work within the frame introduced by the user. If it constantly confirms our premises, it may reinforce certain beliefs rather than challenge them.