Children’s meaningful participation in AI: Co-design scenarios with culturally diverse children toward intercultural, children-centric AI

Meaningful participation is a fundamental right of children. AI co-design as a method can nurture this and facilitate ‘diversity, fairness, and non-discrimination’ as defined by the EU High-Level Expert Group on AI and UNICEF’s Policy Guidance on AI and Children. Employing co-design with diverse children could mitigate discrepancies in intercultural AI ethics frameworks and yield inclusive AI.
Discrepancies often occur because AI systems depart from cultures which value frameworks are often misaligned with those to which AI systems are transferred . Children’s bottom-up meaningful participation through AI co-design would inform top-down ethical frameworks which is necessary as intercultural AI ethics is often about exchanges between top-down frameworks.
We explore what the participation of children can mean through applying PeerPlay and Cultural probes as co-design methods: 1) to elicit children’s cultural and ethical value reflections on AI from similar backgrounds; 2) to facilitate intercultural dialogue about these; 3) to synthesize lessons learnt for inclusive, children-centric AI design.