Aye to AI for kids?

While some pre-schools and enrichment centres are including artificial intelligence in their curriculum, others are divided on the best age to introduce such lessons to children

- Venessa Lee

Pre-schools and enrichment centres are teaching artificial intelligence (AI) to children as young as three years old.

As some pre-schoolers and primary schoolchildren are being guided to choreograph dancing robots or make digital pets, their parents and educators say early exposure to AI, especially through fun lessons, will equip them with the right skills for a future where AI is more dominant.

However, amid wider societal discussions about fake news and AI-generated images, industry insiders interviewed by The Straits Times are divided on whether there is a correct age to introduce AI to kids.

Some say it is good for them to be exposed as early as possible, while others caution that those under the age of five would not understand concepts like intellectual property.

ROBOT DANCES

At ChildFirst Pre-school, kids from Nursery Year 2 (N2)—the year they turn four—to Kindergarten Year 2 (K2)—when they turn six—learn progressively to use AI as part of the curriculum.

Their teachers instruct them in activities such as using voice prompts to generate pictures; making robots do a relay race or navigate obstacles; and designing 3D games using block coding, where users drag and drop jigsaw-like blocks of code, instead of typing in a coding language.

Kindergarten pupils at the ChildFirst@Hillview campus in Upper Bukit Timah, for instance, recently worked on a story using generative-AI tools. This is a form of AI that creates new content like text, audio, images or video, using patterns from data they are trained on.

The children used different programs to write, narrate, illustrate and animate The Great SG60 Ice Kachang Disaster, in which the sun melts large amounts of ice kacang, leaving sticky puddles everywhere and sparking a big clean-up.