The Economist explains that artificial intelligence is creating a future childhood “filled with opportunities-and hidden traps.” They write:
As real kings often discover, a bespoke upbringing can also be a lonely and atomised one. What’s more, as their subjects often find out, it can create adults who are ill-equipped for real life. As AI changes childhood for better and for worse, society must rethink the business of growing up.
Being reared by robots has advantages. Tech firms are already showing how AI can enhance learning, especially where teachers and materials are scarce. Literacy and language-learning have been boosted in early trials. The dream is that, with an AI tutor, children can be saved from classes pitched to the median, in which bright pupils are bored and dim ones are lost. If you want a version of this leader for an eight-year-old Hindi-speaker, AI can rewrite it; if they would prefer it as a cartoon strip or a song, no problem.
Technology is creating new forms of fun, too. Hollywood may dismiss AI videos as “slop”, but young people are devouring them and making their own. Old toys are being upgraded: an AI-powered edition of “Trivial Pursuit” can pose questions on any topic. Video games are creating novel experiences, such as chatting to Darth Vader in “Fortnite”. Any child can meet their heroes (and shoot them).
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