[Commlist] Children and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in Australia: The Big Challenges (Report)

Tama Leaver and Suzanne Srdarov are pleased to share the release of the 
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child report "Children and 
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in Australia: The Big 
Challenges".

The world of AI is complicated and continually changing, with particular 
issues that impact on children and young people more than others. The 
report highlights issues we believe AI companies, policy makers, 
educators and anyone responsible for thinking about AI and kids, should 
consider.

In summary the 9 big challenges in terms of children and generative AI 
tools that they highlight are:
✨ Agentic Language - real-time interactions, especially via voice, make 
GenAI tools sounds like they are agents, aware of what they're saying 
(ie intelligent). They aren't.
✨ Bias - Indiscriminately harvesting data from many sources includes the 
biases inherent in these sources. Bias in often means bias back out again.
✨ Copyright and Ownership - while there are lots of legal questions 
about the training data, it's clear a lot of content was taken without 
permission or payment, which remains a big issue.
✨ Environmental Cost - the cost of a GenAI answer is significantly 
higher than other answers, including search. That adds up to a lot more 
power, water and other resources for these tools. In a world struggling 
with climate change, GenAI is making that struggle worse, not better.
✨ Indigenous Data Sovereignty - at present, Indigenous data is harvested 
indiscriminately, perpetuating the worst extractivist harms, and not 
giving Indigenous people a real say in how these tools are deployed.
✨ Interactive AI Agents & AI Companions - the design of GenAI tools 
makes them feel like actual people. Emotional ties and bonds can be 
built, especially by younger users. That can be dangerous.
✨ Privacy - these tools are all hungry for personal data in a range of 
ways, many of which are not made transparent to users.
✨ Ubiquitous AI - increasingly the question isn't where to find AI 
tools, but wide integration means it's hard to find online spaces where 
AI tools aren't now baked in.
✨ AI Literacies or Critical AI Literacies? - there's a vital difference 
between equipping young people to be AI tool users compared to having 
the literacy to evaluate the full costs and appropriateness (or not) of 
using these tools in the first place.

The full report can be read and downloaded here: 
https://issuu.com/digitalchild/docs/children_and_generative_artificial_intelligence_g 


More of the Centre's work on children and GenAI can be found here: 
https://digitalchild.org.au/artificialintelligence/

> #artificialintelligence #GenAI #childrensrights


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