How worried should you be about your children using AI?

There is cause for concern, say the experts, but don't panic.

- By ELLA WALKER

MANAGING your child’s screen time and keeping the dinner table phone-free can feel like more than enough digital-related stress.

AI though? That brings all new potential terrors lots of parents would, understandably, rather ignore.

But if we're to protect our children and help them navigate AI, we must get to grips with it, say the experts.

“There is a fear of the unknown because AI is moving so quickly,” says Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at software company ESET. “We've got parents who don’t necessarily understand AI, and then we've got children growing up with it.”

It leaves a gap, and parents can end up being “pushed further and further” away from new technology.

“We don’t want a world of technophobe parents,” says Jake. “We want parents to understand what their kids are going through.”

“Parents do need to be alert, but not alarmed [by Al],” says Yasmin London, child digital safety and wellbeing lead at digital safeguarding firm Qoria. “They need to develop their own AI literacy on what their kids might be exposed to.”

With AI regulation from the Government lagging, parents need an idea of the risks their kids might face...

1. AI companions: Big tech used to be interested in the “attention economy”, but now it’s moving into the “attachment economy”, which is where AI companions come in.

Sites like Nomi are being used by kids to “create any avatar they want and use that avatar as a friend,’ explains Yasmin.