At this point, it’s difficult to find a consensus on AI. Like all new technology, it fosters the same fears we’ve always seen with emerging tech but with many championing the opportunities it allows.
And the same discussions are being had about AI being used in schools. Most kids we speak to have heard about AI in some form, some have used it - mainly ChatGPT or Snapchat AI - but few have actively used it in schools. We asked our Trendspotters, Beano Brain’s 8-12yo collective, to tell us what they think about AI and how they use it in their lives.
The most common perception about AI is that it’s a robot that helps get their answers quickly - a search engine on speed. Some kids have awareness that AI could help them, be that cheating at school, or writing a love poem, or even become better at gaming. Ella told us that she sometimes turns to Snapchat’s chatbot ‘My AI’ for times when she’s feeling low.
“AI is like a thingy but in a robot, like in Snapchat, you can speak to the AI. I sometimes chat to it on Snapchat, and it cheers me up or makes it a better situation" – Ella
Snap’s generative AI introduces an interactive tone to make Ella feel as though she could be speaking with a friend, a persona rather than a productivity tool like ChatGPT. As a digital-savvy generation, most kids do have a sense of the power of AI and the potential issues it may present:
"I said Hi to the Snapchat AI once and it like texts back - "Hey how's it going?" I didn't reply. It's been banned in America cos I could just say "write me a 3-paragraph story about cheese" and it would do it. You can get it to cheat in school. The school hasn't said anything about using AI - they trust us" - Harris
"Lots of apps have AI in them and I've heard of ChatGPT and Bard which is Google's. I've also seen this AI game on YouTube Shorts where you have to guess if you are chatting to AI or a human. If you are right, you get stars and if you are wrong you lose lives" - Theon
But what could AI positively add to the learning experience? Khan Academy is a US-based ed-tech NPO that has been offering free online education to kids for a while and has more recently unveiled an even deeper level of AI interaction in learning support. Khanmigo uses AI to prompt Socratic debate in kids' learning, not give them a quick shortcut answer. It’s the kind of Rebel Thinking that Beano Brain celebrates encouraging kids to collaborate and explore problems together, acting as a personalised super tutor to invite kids to learn in a way that suits them.
It’s still nascent times for AI in education but avoiding it seems unrealistic. Guardrails and regulations are needed but also constructive conversations on how AI can be used in the classroom to make humans better teachers, students, and thinkers.
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