AI-shaped childhoods. How are AI-based technologies transforming parenting and schooling?

The experiences of caregiving and care receiving, both within a family as well as school context, have undergone considerable changes during the last decade.

On the one hand, many parents have started to turn to chatbots for parental advice or have become accustomed to using various AI-based parenting technologies—from AI-powered diapers, baby monitors, prams and toys; to parental controls and location-tracking apps. On the other hand, many educational institutions around the world have become accustomed to making use of AI-based educational technologies in a variety of ways—for predicting outcomes and preventing risks, for providing insights into the processes of learning, or for personalizing the education system around every student’s personal needs.

While some have greeted such uptake of AI-powered applications with enthusiastic techno-optimism stressing the revolutionary powers of technology, others are deeply concerned about the potential harms such applications might have on children’s agency, privacy, and rights, not to mention senses of fairness. Such heightened use of advanced digital technologies results also in profound implications for children’s preferences, social relations, and opportunities.

Relying upon the findings of my different empirical case studies, I will showcase how the use of different AI-based technologies within home and school environments could create not only hypothetical data scares but also lead to real data scars in the lives of the young.

Speaker

Andra Siibak is a Professor of Media Studies, a Deputy Head of Research and Development, and a Program Director of the Doctoral Curriculum in Media and Communication at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her research focuses on opportunities and risks surrounding internet use, digital childhoods, datafication of education, and privacy. Together with Giovanna Mascheroni she co-authored the monograph “Datafied Childhoods: Data Practices and Imaginaries in Children’s Lives” (2021, Peter Lang). Andra is a member of Film, Media, and Visual Studies section of Academia Europaea and serves as the General Secretary of European