Not only does AI change the way children learn and interact with the world around them, it also opens up new opportunities and poses major challenges to ensuring a safe and thriving environment for children.
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| Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly important field and has a profound impact on many aspects of modern life. |
Risks come with convenience
With its intelligence and computing power, AI has become an indispensable part of human life, including children. AI creates trends every time children access the Internet, interfering with learning programs, entertainment, etc.; bringing many benefits and conveniences but also posing risks to children, including issues of privacy protection, safety as well as psychological and behavioral impacts.
AI has created a breakthrough in improving the education system and learning methods for children in Vietnam; opening up many opportunities, helping to improve and develop skills for children; providing interactive learning applications on cyberspace; supporting personalization; creating an interesting and engaging learning environment... Children can access a huge repository of knowledge and exercises and receive instant feedback from the AI system.
Currently, in Vietnam, some software and online educational programs applying AI technology are used by many schools such as: Hocmai.vn, VnEdu or GoMaths, STEM youth science and technology, Codelearn, CoderSchool...
Children's thinking and creativity are also developed when they perform entertainment and playing activities on AI-based software such as smart video games (Garena Lien Quan Mobile, PUBG Mobile or Foody Crush), painting applications (Colorize, Adobe Photoshop)...
These software not only bring relaxing time and unique entertainment experiences but also stimulate children's intelligence, creativity and logic.
With its intelligence and convenience, AI brings an easier, more automated and convenient life for children. Applications such as virtual assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, Grab... are no longer strange and are used proficiently by children, supporting children in daily activities such as controlling smartphones to search for information, book a car, shop online or arrange schedules... AI has also been applied in smart home appliances, voice control such as washing machines, smart refrigerators... to best serve the needs and lives of children.
However, the risks that AI brings are not small. AI is changing the way people interact with machines and between people; affecting children's psychology and behavior; violating confidentiality and privacy.
Nowadays, children are almost too dependent on technology, especially smart software and applications that use AI. The more time children interact with technology machines, the more likely they are to suffer from depression, behavioral disorders, even addiction, and heavy dependence on AI, especially in learning, reducing children's ability to think, research, work, and be proactive.
Not only that, with smart algorithms, AI can easily penetrate into private life, collect all information of children from hobbies, personal information, images... easily; making children's lives and secrets no longer safe. Especially when children do not have enough ability to understand and assess risks, do not realize the serious consequences of providing personal information, images...
Not only that, children also face the risk of accessing inappropriate information. All AI calculations are based on copying, "mechanical" calculations, without selection or control, so they can bring bad and toxic information such as fake news, pornographic images, depravity, violence...
In addition, the development of AI in the field of education has inadvertently brought about inequality, pressure and comparison among children today.
Recently, the United Nations Children's Fund also warned about the risks to children related to AI, including mentioning that AI can exacerbate inequality and bias when some schools use machines to sort applications for admission but this unintentionally excludes a certain group of students. Or AI algorithms can promote comparisons between children and others, causing dissatisfaction with themselves. This can negatively affect children's confidence and mental health.
Another important risk is the imbalance and disconnection between people. Over-reliance on AI and technology can cause children to lose their social skills, direct communication, and ability to build relationships. This can lead to negative consequences for children's overall development, especially in emotions and behavior. Children will not know how to control and express their emotions; they will not know how to interact with people around them.
| According to data published by service providers, as of March 2023, vnEdu is being used in 57 provinces and cities with more than 3 million student records from 9,000 schools nationwide; only counting high school age students, FUNiX currently has 3,090 students participating in programming courses; by the end of 2020, hocmai.vn had more than 4.5 million students registered to study. |
Protecting children from the dangers of AI
For children, the use of AI requires caution and careful supervision from adults. The most important thing is to ensure that children are educated and guided in the safe use of technology; while maintaining a balance between technical progress and other factors of child development. Therefore, there is a need for proper recognition and reasonable solutions for children to access and use AI safely.
First, it is necessary to create a safe technological environment for children. The State and relevant agencies need to issue regulations related to content censorship before releasing applications and software using AI technology. In particular, service providers are required to have warnings about content related to children.
Second, awareness education is the most important measure to help children protect themselves from the risks of AI. Children need to be equipped with basic knowledge about AI, technology, engineering, etc., as well as soft skills in using technology and social networks.
In particular, it integrates instructions on how to use technology and smart applications with warnings about the risks of unsafety and negative aspects of these applications for children as well as basic awareness of privacy and online responsibility...
Third, there needs to be measures to monitor and manage children's use of AI technology. This means not allowing children to "freely" access these technologies. Management can be about time, content, and form of use to ensure children's safety; avoiding unwanted consequences and impacts on children. This includes establishing regulations on technology use, monitoring children's online activities, and creating a chat and discussion environment for children to be open and easy to share.
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| Child protection in cyberspace needs special attention in child protection work in the coming time. (Source: Internet) |
Fourth, there needs to be guidance in children's approach and use of AI. Instead of letting children use AI technology just for entertainment purposes, which can easily lead to negative effects, parents need to encourage children to use AI technology creatively and usefully; guide children to approach useful software and applications for learning, research, thinking, creativity, etc.
Fifth, in order for children to not use AI passively and to fully exploit its features, it is necessary to build life skills and critical thinking skills in children. This includes equipping children with the ability to evaluate information, think analytically, solve problems, and work in groups. This way, children will not be dependent on AI, can protect themselves from potential risks, and truly master technology.
This equipment can be through organizing programs and courses on life skills, technology usage and mastery skills, and how to protect oneself from online risks such as abuse, infringement, and harmful content.
Sixth, to face the challenges of AI, coordination is needed between parents, teachers, schools, authorities and service providers, including clearly defining the responsibilities of each party in protecting children from the risks of AI.
In addition, there should be clear policies and regulations on protecting children's privacy and personal data; AI service providers need to have commitments in protecting personal information to provide a safe environment and protect children from abuse.
In Vietnam, AI training programs for children are still quite new and not yet widely popular. Some organizations, educational centers and companies have implemented AI training activities for children such as robotics and programming classes, giving children the opportunity to experience and learn.
However, investment and support from the Government and relevant agencies are needed to make AI training programs for children an indispensable part of education in Vietnam.
Understanding and addressing the impact of AI on children is vital. We need to take advantage of the opportunities that AI technology presents, while ensuring that children are protected and safe when interacting with AI.
There needs to be close coordination between the State, authorities, families, schools and service providers to build a new, fair and diverse educational environment; supporting children in understanding and using AI intelligently and safely. Only then can we ensure that children will benefit and develop from the advancement of AI, becoming confident, creative individuals and contributing positively to society in the future.
Some suggestions on rules for using AI technology for children- Usage time: clearly define the time for using AI technology, including clearly distinguishing between study time and play time as well as limiting the amount of time children spend on entertainment; limiting actions that are not allowed during study time... - Content of applications: manage and control the content of AI software that children are using; understand what children are learning, playing, and exploring; clearly define what children can and cannot do. - Children's personal information: strictly manage children's personal information; set children the principle of never publicly disclosing personal information such as full name, school, address, house number, phone number, etc.; explain to children that this information can be collected and used by others for bad purposes. - Set up punishments when children do not comply with the rules. This should be discussed with the child before asking them to comply. At the same time, parents also need to maintain a firm and consistent attitude between punishments to create habits for the child. - Teach children how to refuse when friends invite them. |
(*) Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention, Ministry of Public Security.
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