Here are some questions I posed in 2017 regarding the interactions children will have with AI. Posted here in light of the recent coverage AI-powered toys have been getting.

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Our identity … does not emerge in pristine isolation from other human beings or independently from the fabric of our material culture, technologies included. That is not the ideal to which we should aim. Technology will unavoidably be part of our children’s lives and ours. But which technologies? Under what circumstances? For what purposes? With what consequences? These are some of the questions we should be asking.

Of an AI assistant that becomes part of a child’s taken-for-granted environment, other more specific questions also come to mind:

• What conversations or interactions will the AI assistant displace?

• How will it effect the development of a child’s imagination?

• How will it direct a child’s attention?

• How will a child’s language acquisition be affected?

• What expectations will it create regarding the solicitude they can expect from the world?

• How will their curiosity be shaped by what the AI assistant can and cannot answer?

• Will the AI assistants undermine the development of critical cognitive skills by their ability to immediately respond to simple questions?

• Will their communication and imaginative life shrink to the narrow parameters within which they can interact with AI?

• Will parents be tempted to offload their care and attentiveness to the AI assistant, and with what consequences?