Telling adults, now of AI development for children. "AI for children, by children"

2022.2.12 Supervisor Takashi Wada Marketing Director Laboro.AI Co., Ltd.

Overview

Smartphones, smart speakers, smart TVs... In the world of children who grow up surrounded by these, contact with AI is no longer inevitable. Adults and children have completely different ways of interacting with AI. Children feel that AI is a person, ask questions that their parents cannot ask, and understand that AI is listening to them. To do. However, the AI ​​that is familiar to children today has developed based on the rules and common sense of the adult world. In the future, when children's first friends may become AI, what kind of AI do you want them to have? In this column, I would like to focus on the relationship between AI and children and think about "AI for children."

Contents

・Towards an “AI native” generation・Will speech recognition AI solve the worries of screen time・A “children’s court” born from a completely opposite approach　・AI for adults based on data from adults・From AI It doesn't matter if you don't get the correct answer・Children are skeptical creatures・There is an order to the development of intelligence. "Children who can't draw" ・ AI and adults, AI and children ・ AI for children is created from scratch ・ AI for children based on children's data ・ The ideal partner for children is, of course, "Doraemon" 』

Towards an “AI native” generation

Will voice recognition AI solve screen time worries?

“Alexa, play Doraemon” It is becoming commonplace to see young children casually talking to AI-equipped devices. Seeing "AI natives" interacting naturally with AI, there are probably more than a few people who feel that the times have changed. Since it is said that children learn to swipe the screen before they learn to speak, generations have passed, and AI assistants are rapidly becoming part of children's daily lives. In particular, voice assistants, which are being introduced at a rapid pace, have 4.8 billion devices using voice recognition AI as of 2020, and the number is expected to reach 8.4 billion by 2024. . This number exceeds the world's population, but if you stop and think about it, in this era of "one smartphone per person", it seems that there are more than a few households that own multiple devices, including sleeping voice AI. And, for example, two years from now, it wouldn't be unnatural to have a reality where people are talking to AI more casually. In fact, the reason why such voice AI is so familiar to families with children is that voice AI is favorably considered as a rival to children's "watching" services.

Since the spread of the new coronavirus, we have been spending most of our time at home, and we are in an environment where digital screens such as smartphones, computers, and tablets are always on. I'm here. At that time, the National Center for Child Health and Development set up the "Corona x Children's Headquarters" and regularly conducted a questionnaire survey on screen time for children from 0 years old to high school students. According to a survey conducted in September and October 2020, 40% of the respondents answered that their screen time had increased by "1 to 2 hours" or "2 hours or more". I'm here. It is recommended that children should spend no more than two hours a day on the screen, and it is hoped that "screen-free" voice recognition AI will put a brake on the current situation and become an assistant that helps children grow. there is.

"Children's Court" born from a completely opposite approach

By being conscious of children, unprecedented interactive voice recognition AI utilization methods are also being created. In the Amazon official skill contest `` Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids '' category recruited in 2018, various ideas for children under the age of 13 were gathered. The Grand Prix winner "Kids Court" is a system in which Alexa acts as a judge and arbitrates real fights between children. The trial begins with the child complaining of damage such as 'My brother hit me', 'I broke a toy', and 'I took sweets' towards the AI ​​judge who appeared 'Quietly!' In response to this, the AI ​​asks, "Are you sure about the defendant?" and "Are there any witnesses?" It is said that it is like this.

In the first place, the reason why the developer, Adva Levin, devised "Kids Court" is that adults and children have completely different ways of facing voice recognition AI.

"When I was observing the adults, they only interacted with giving instructions (e.g. adding milk) or asking questions (e.g. what's the weather like today?)" Thinking that there was someone in the box, he happily talked to me like a friend."

The resulting "Kids Court" is, in a sense, a completely opposite approach to the interaction between humans and AI that is taking place between adults. Teaching is what makes us human.

AI for adults based on data from adults

If you think about it, most of the AI ​​that is now permeating the world of children was developed on the assumption that it will be used in the world of adults. It is something that has been done. Basically, AI learns by being taught that "this is the correct answer" first, such as learning a large amount of cat images and being able to distinguish cats. At that time, humans, who are the developers of AI, can distinguish between what is right and what is not because they look at things in light of what they have learned in the past. Like computer programming, the adult brain works on the principle of repetitive learning. When you go to the ice cream shop, they tell you that the chocolate flavor is good, but when you get home, you complain that the vanilla flavor is good. It doesn't work. In other words, until now, consistent correct answers have been essential to developing AI, and the common sense of children's world has not been incorporated into AI algorithms.

You don't have to get the correct answer from the AI

Children are skeptical creatures

Young children have a naive image, but in reality they are very suspicious. Observing. A Harvard study of young children found that between the ages of 2 and 5, children asked for explanations a total of 40,000 times. Children who are with adults they are close to ask questions every minute. In fact, children who come into contact with AI talk to AI with the feeling of exploring AI to find out who this machine is watching them, whether they can really see themselves, and whether it can answer any questions. increase.

"Who are you?" "Where are you?" "Do you know my name?"

Children are checking things one by one that adults don't believe. And even if AI does not return the correct answer, young children will not be disappointed by the error or mistake, but will think with AI, search for answers and landing points, and try to complete it in their own world. In this way, it is important for children to accumulate experiences that they have learned from themselves by repeatedly asking questions. Rather, acquiring an attitude that does not expect too much to receive correct answers will be useful for children's later growth. It is considered

Intelligence develops in an order. "Children who can't draw"

A child's brain weighs only 300 to 400g at birth, when they are full of curiosity. A lot of energy is expended to develop intelligence, reaching 90% of the adult brain (1200-1500g) at the age of 5. What will happen to children's intelligence if the order of development is disturbed by adults at that time? For example, pictures are a rudimentary communication tool for people who were born before letters, but nowadays there are children who cannot draw pictures in preschool education. When children are taught the rules for adults or how to express them in letters, such as drawing stars as “☆”, children tend to draw motifs or write letters as they are taught. It is said that he ends up drawing things that are too poor to be called paintings.

Originally, the completion of the painting is not so important for children, and the process of drawing is more meaningful than seeing the work as a "picture to see". Children, who are moved by the emotions of the moment, draw what comes to mind while drawing pictures, advancing the story as their hearts desire, adding characters, and going on adventures. Eventually, the scene of the story will be nighttime, and the things I have drawn will be painted black and finished, and the adults around me will freeze. Rather than being taught how to draw by adults or having them see the finished work later, children's paintings are "listening pictures" that require someone close to them to listen to the story. In that sense, if there is a voice recognition AI that can be close to children's world and ask, "What happened then?", it may be a tool that expands the possibilities of children more than we think.

AI and Adults, AI and Children

Building AI for Children from Scratch

From childhood when I was excited about what was in front of me to adults It seems that more than 40% of our daily actions are based on "habits". This habit system works almost automatically without you thinking about it, but if you lose the habit system and keep programming everything every time, it takes a lot of effort. In other words, it is proof that repetitive and automatic habits have become an adult brain, and we adults will naturally accept AI when it helps us to be more efficient. Can you do it? For example, in the adult world, predictive conversion is frequently used in daily communication, and e-commerce sites are guided by recommendation systems, making contact and shopping much easier. Reading in the age of AI, such as buying a book recommended by AI, asking a smart speaker to read it, and listening to the voice generation AI reading it aloud while doing housework, is also being used conveniently. Isn't it? While the use of AI for adults is gaining momentum, in the field of AI development for children, where AI has begun to be reconsidered, instead of adjusting adult things for children, AI is created from scratch that is suitable for children. Movement can also be seen.

AI for children based on children's data

An Irish company that developed speech recognition AI for children based on children's voice data recently announced that this voice recognition AI Declared that recordings will not be sold or used for marketing without identifying In the case of reading, the child and the AI ​​take turns reading aloud, and when the child gets stuck, the AI ​​supports them, and by doing so, the AI ​​learns how the child speaks, so that both the child and the AI ​​grow. There are also products designed with this in mind.

The ideal partner for children is still "Doraemon"

Now that AI is interacting with children like this, children still love "Doraemon". Nearly 2,000 secret gadgets have appeared so far. One of them, "Okonomi Box", can be a music player or a camera at will, such as turning it into a TV when you say, "Let's turn it into a TV." Yes, as you may have noticed, this Doraemon secret gadget is similar to a smartphone with voice recognition AI. The reason why children like Doraemon, even in a world where similar things actually exist, is that children are more suited to the world of free thinking, ``I wish I could do that,'' rather than the functions of the secret gadgets themselves.

When I look at AI with my children, I feel that adults are more likely to live with someone to whom they can share their ideas, saying, "I wish I could do something like this," rather than being guided so that I don't have to think for myself. It means that it is also rich for people. AI, which is good at learning, seems to be a good partner for children who are learning a lot every day, but what kind of AI should be allowed to enter while children are trying to learn on their own is a question. It may depend on the firm will of us adults.

(Supervised by Labro.AI Inc. Marketing Director Takashi Wada)

・Statista ”Number of digital voice assistants in use worldwide from 2019 to 2024 (in billions)”・Mainichi Shimbun ``How to deal with children's ``screen time'' that is getting longer due to poor eyesight and obesity ? "・DEVPOST ”Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids"・amazon alexa"Announcing the Winners of the Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids"・Pure Wow"The 'Kids Court' Skill on Alexa Resolves Sibling Squabbles So You Don't Have To"・Medium ``Interview with the creator of Kids Court — a skill that won Alexa Kids Challenge and $25k'' by Ian Leslie "Children ask 40,000 questions: The amazing power of curiosity to shape your life" MIT Technology Review ``Podcast: When AI becomes child's play'' by Juichi Yamagiwa, "Children who want to throw away their smartphones: how to live in an 'unknown era' that learns from the wild" by Akemi Torii, "how to see and raise children's drawings" by Charles Duhick "The Power of Habit" CNN Business ”Irish tech firm helps kids' voices be heard" Tech Crunch "Amazon introduces Reading Sidekick, a kids reading companion for Alexa, and Voice Profiles for Kids" Fujiko F. Fujio "Doraemon 19"