AI and Early Childhood

Studying early childhood development is crucial in today’s rapidly changing world, as it shapes lifelong learning, emotional resilience, and social skills.

Labeling Just as Dumbo’s journey in Disney’s classic film highlights the impact of support and understanding, nurturing young minds ensures they thrive despite adversity and embrace their unique potential.

Maybe to the surprise of no one, I used AI, specifically Co-Pilot on my PC to write the above paragraph. Here are the exact parameters I requested: write a 50-word paragraph describing the importance of studying early childhood development in today’s climate and include a reference to Disney’s Dumbo. In less than 3 seconds it was generated and ready to use. I read it over and corrected a couple of minor errors. It was remarkably easy. Some would say that’s a win, while others would argue that’s the problem. AI might be the single most controversial technological advancement of our time. It’s no secret that artificial intelligence is outpacing our human capacity for understanding. Even developers of AI are concerned with how intelligent this “artificial intelligence” is becoming. So, what does this mean for the critical field of education?

Children’s brains are wired to learn through tactile and auditory stimulation, among other types of sensory input. When psychologist Jean Piaget described children as “little scientists” he wasn’t describing the art of children sitting at a desk clacking away at a keyboard. He was referring to the ability of children to make sense of the world around them by touching and exploring. By seeing what happens when they throw a rock into a body of water. By hearing the splash and the feeling the weight of the rock. AI can describe this to a child, but they will never know unless they experience it themselves. Our modern experiences allow us to simply “Google” anything we want to know and in a matter of seconds (e.g. 3 seconds to write a paragraph) it’s presented to us. Convenient? Yes. Beneficial? Perhaps. Detrimental? Perhaps. We no longer need heavy sets of encyclopedias to learn information. We are losing the skill of perusing an index to find the topic we need. But during that page turning and using your finger to search for the text on the page, many neurological connections were firing. The feel of the paper. The smell of the ink. The weight of however many pages you had already turned. Your brain stored that data away and the next time you went to search for something, you did it faster. Maybe not in three seconds, but you advanced. In a world where children watch videos of other people playing with toys rather than playing with the toys themselves, or where they watch videos of other people drawing pictures of dragons rather than drawing dragons themselves, we are in potentially dangerous territory of losing the innate wonder of learning that comes through empirical knowledge.

AI and the rapid changes of technology are not bad. We have achieved incredible milestones through our use of technology with many, many more to come. In fact one of the achievements of AI is the potential benefits to the neurodiverse population. Advancements in technology are rapidly closing discrimination gaps, and this is exciting for all of us. Truly, the advancement of tech isn’t a standalone concern. But our literacy in AI is imperative to our ability to walk in tandem with the pace of the changes. These advancements aren’t going to fade but rather grow stronger. Our children’s ability to connect to each other as humans in real time is, in fact, beginning to fade, and that is the concern. Let’s do our part by educating ourselves on the risks of AI while appreciating the benefits it offers. But even more importantly, let’s preserve the wonder of learning through direct sensory forward experiences for our children. AI technologies like Google and Co-Pilot have a place, but let’s not allow the progress of tech to take the place of swinging on the swings or digging in the sand. Hopefully we can guide our children to hold the balance of discovery and technology, and perhaps before we have seen everything – including seeing an elephant fly (or, at least a video).

Related links:

https://www.unicef.org/innocenti/generative-ai-risks-and-opportunities-children

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/edcast/24/10/impact-ai-childrens-development

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5373324-ai-threats-child-development/