The Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC), in collaboration with researchers from the EU Kids Online network and partners in Brazil, India, Kenya and Thailand, is leading the RIGHTS.AI project. This initiative delves into how children aged 13–17 interact with generative AI tools such as chatbots and image creators. The study aims to understand their expectations, fears, hopes, and imaginations, while assessing the impact on their rights, creativity, and development.
They published a methods guide, explaining the research process in detail, providing the resources for future researchers to publish similar studies.
Some of the key findings include:
- Normalisation of GenAI in daily life, especially in India, where GenAI tools have become embedded in technologies young people routinely use — often without much formal discussion of their ethical or safe use.
- Opportunities and risks: Children recognise the potential of GenAI for enhancing education, inclusion and creative expression. However, they also raised concerns, including bias in output quality for non-English languages, privacy risks, a lack of age-appropriate design and unclear rules or safeguards.
- Cultural and linguistic fairness is a major worry. For example, children in Thailand pointed out discrepancies in output quality when prompts are made in non-English languages, undermining their educational opportunities and leading to unequal experiences.
The RIGHTS.AI reports and overview are now publicly available, offering cross-country comparative insights along with country-specific findings.
