Children and AI: Industry, research, design, and policy perspectives

25.5.2025 9.30-11 Frost club
25.5.2026 12-16.00 Tellus Stage
26.5.2026 9.30-11.30 Tellus stage
26.5.206 11.30-15.30 Tellus stage

Learning Outcomes: Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:
• Identify ethical, societal, and safety concerns including dependency, manipulation, privacy, and agency with children’s increasing use of AI.
• Articulate tensions and trade-offs between design, industry, research, and policy frameworks and practices.
• Propose design, policy, and/or research frameworks for ethical, safe, and developmentally supportive AI applications, tools, and systems for children.
• Identify and understand rigorous research studies addressing children and AI.

Sumita Sharma

Read, J., Horton, M., Fitton, D., & Sim, G. (2025, April). Child Centred Ethics (CCE): A Practical Framework for Enhanced Child Participation in HCI. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-16).

Tiwari, Sonia. (2025). Designing ethical AI characters for children’s early learning experiences." AI, Brain and Child 1, no. 1: 1-17.

Innocenti, U. N. I. C. E. F. (2025). Guidance on AI and Children 3.0: Updated guidance for governments and businesses to create AI policies and systems that uphold children’s rights. UNICEF Innocenti–Global Office of Research and Foresight.

Iivari, N., Sharma, S., Gazulla, E. D., Kinnula, M., Hartikainen, H., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., & Lehto, E. (2024). HCI design for children. In Designing for Usability, Inclusion and Sustainability in Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 356-388). CRC press.

Post-Seminar Assignment: A 1000-words written reflection on any of the following or related topics:

Privacy, Surveillance, and Children’s Data in AI Companion Systems

Play, Imagination, and Synthetic Worlds: Rethinking Childhood Creativity with AI

Education in the Age of AI: Opportunities and Risks

Regulating AI Companions: A Child Rights Perspective

The course is in-person and students will work in groups for certain activities, so the max participation is 50. Selection is based on order of registration.

Students are required to attend the course in person as much as possible. Lectures will only be in-person.

Students need to attend the entire two-day course and complete a pre and post assignment to get 2ECTS.