Protecting children in the age of AI

The age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is very much here.

- VITIT MUNTARBHORN

The term "generative AI" is now commonplace, with the public fascinated that AI can actively produce content such as written and audio creations. In fact, the world is moving towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) whereby robots will be able to match and even outdo human intelligence. Aptly, its relationship with children (under 18 years) invites reflection and precaution.

On the one hand, AI can bring great benefits, building on the strengths of existing digitalization. It can be a useful educational tool, such as to help children who face learning difficulties or disabilities. It is a technology of connectivity and helps to facilitate communication and information dissemination. It can act as an instrument of leisure, such as to invent games. It can promote human efficiency, such as to deal with repetitive tasks in the medical field.

On the other hand, AI also brings risks. It might be a tool of exploitation, such as in relation to sexual abuse and exploitation. It is a technology of alienation used for bullying, hate speech, discrimination and violence. It lends itself to information distortion and manipulation, such as hallucinations, fakes and scams, misinformation and disinformation, propaganda and surveillance. It is an instrument of stress, replete with addiction and superficial self-validation. It is emerging as an instrument of human subjugation and dejection, especially when and where it controls human lives perhaps absolutely.

How then is the world community to handle that ambivalence? The international guiding framework is the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its General Comment No.25 on children's rights in the digital environment, highlighting child protection.

In reality, implementation is open to a variety of orientations, bearing in mind that both AI and related responses are in a state of flux.