Adolescent Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence Report
A report on consultations with adolescents across the world
Highlights
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) promotes the right of young children and adolescents to participate in decision-making in policies, processes and practices that affect their lives. UNICEF and its partners have accumulated considerable experience with ways to engage adolescents and encourage their active participation in decision-making to realise these rights. Building on its accumulated expertise, UNICEF is developing a children's rights perspective in the rapidly-emerging sphere of artificial intelligence (AI).
This document reports on workshops conducted in 2020 with 245 adolescents in five countries. It includes the adolescents' views and aspirations on AI; the nature of their experiences with AI; and their opinions on how they understand the risks and opportunities that AI presents in their lives. It features key messages that emerged from these consultations and the methods employed to engage adolescents in dialogue on AI. An appendix provides a selection of adolescent views on AI in their own words.
The workshops with adolescents are part of the broader AI for Children Project led by the UNICEF Office of Global Insight and Policy. The adolescents’ voices, combined with consultations with experts around the world, shaped the development of a draft Policy Guidance on AI for Children. The guidance is aimed at governments and businesses to help them create AI policies and systems that are child-centred.
