Introduction
This project engages with children to explore what children think about AI, how they would like to see AI developed in the future, and how children can become more involved in shaping AI innovation, policy, and governance. From our public engagement work, we aim to use our findings to inform policymakers to support the development of child-centred AI. 
About the project
Since 2022, we have been collaborating with the Children's Parliament and the Scottish AI Alliance to engage primary school children (ages 7 – 11) across Scotland on AI and children’s rights. A series of introductory workshops were held with 87 children in four schools across Scotland including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirlingshire, and Shetland. Following this, we are continuing to work with children from across these schools over a two-year period. This project is exploring how children feel about AI, how they would like to see AI developed in the future, and how children would like to be involved in the development and governance of AI.
As part of this project, we travelled up and around Scotland to meet and work with all 87 children speaking to them about children’s rights and AI but, more importantly, learning about what matters to them in this area. Our team developed creative and interactive ways to explain foundational AI concepts, for instance how an algorithm works and what machine learning is.
“I didn’t know before that AI could be used in healthcare to help people”.
- P5 Student, Stirlingshire, Scotland
In addition to the introductory workshops, our team together with the Children’s Parliament continued to work with the core ‘AI investigators’ team of 13 children across the four schools. From November 2022 – February 2023 we ran six 90-minute workshops. Each workshop focused on a different theme of children’s rights and AI with children sharing their thoughts on bias, fairness, where AI may be used in their daily lives, and how AI may be better developed to uphold children’s rights. The children quickly grasped difficult concepts like how algorithms are used in prediction, recommendation, and classification.
In an additional set of four online sessions, the children had the opportunity to ask us questions based on real-world AI case-studies. We were impressed with the variety and depth of questions asked, such as the limitations of facial recognition for identical twins and improving training data to reduce bias. One case study focused on AI in healthcare where children expressed concerns about accessibility and asked how AI devices can be designed to be more accessible for the elderly and younger individuals. Children explicitly mentioned their ‘right to privacy’ and asked, ‘how fair is it for companies to collect information [data] about children?’. Other children said, ‘a lot of games try and get children to spend money’ and wanted to learn about how to better safeguard themselves online. Children also showed empathetic considerations pointing to the digital divide and asked, ‘is it fair that some children do not have access to AI [devices]?’.
Our project report, summarising the first stage of our engagements with children in Scotland, identifies four key themes drawn from the investigator’s participation: AI & Education, Fairness & Bias, Safety & Security, and The Future of AI. In the next phase of this research, we are continuing to collaborate with the Children’s Parliament and Scottish AI Alliance to explore these themes, and to develop and test new approaches to engaging children in decision-making and policy-making relating to AI in Scotland.
You can watch the project video below:
Applications
We asked if children think they should have a say in how AI is made and developed and they said,
“Yes. To evolve their [children’s] future and make sure nothing bad’s going to happen…And make their future better. And everyone’s future – better."
- P5 Student, Glasgow, Scotland
AI is increasingly part of children's day-to-day lives with impacts often realised only in retrospect. Understanding the ways in which children understand, experience, and engage with AI could provide much needed guidance for policymakers, AI developers, and affected stakeholders to inform future approaches to child-centred AI.
Specifically, our research engaging children across Scotland on AI and children’s rights will contribute towards Scotland’s AI Strategy to ‘Develop Scotland’s approach to AI and children’. It can also help to build out not only protections for children currently set out in the GDPR and Age-Appropriate Design Code, but also empower children in their use and understanding of digital technologies.
Broader applications and benefits of this project include critical research needed to lay the foundation and inform the landscape of children’s rights as they relate to AI, especially as new technologies that directly affect children continue to be developed and deployed.
With this research, the case for children to be included as a key stakeholder group and be meaningfully involved in the development of child-centred AI will be further strengthened and help to ensure their voices are heard. This project prioritises the diversity and inclusion of minority and marginalised groups as a key component throughout to ensure that future research applications are relevant and beneficial to all children.
Researchers and collaborators
Morgan Briggs
Research Associate for Data Science and Ethics
Sabeehah Mahomed
Researcher, Ethics & Responsible InnovationPrevious contributors
