Empathic technologies: children, toys and schools
It seems that children are forgettable. While critical attention to emotional AI and empathic technologies focuses on adult data, there is growing use with children. Our work by Prof. Andrew McStay and Dr. Gilad Rosner (founder of the IoT Privacy Forum) examines two dimensions: toys and schools.
The toys work (Rights of Childhood: Affective Computing and Data Protection) funded by the HDI+Network and EPSRC (2019-20) identifies the socio-technical ethical terms by which affective child-inclusive Internet of Things (IoT), such as toys, but also home assistants, should function.
This is in order to: understand how they intersect and affect children’s information rights; identify which criteria are required to create consumer trust in emotion-sensitive products; and understand how children and parents can be empowered by technology design and rights.
Methods include UK national surveys of parents (n=1000), focus groups with parents (teaming with Dr. Kate Armstrong from the Institute of Imagination) and “elite” interviewing.
In education, McStay explores how the application of emotional AI promises to assist with personalised learning, development of social and emotion learning, to understand if students are struggling with class material, and which students need to be challenged further by class content.
He finds a tension between schools’ pedagogical prerogatives (i.e. the wide latitude given to schools to set the terms of education) and the right for parents to have consent options in relation to data collection about their children.
Other issues are the empirics of face-based emotional AI employed in EdTech (does it work?), consequences of judgements about emotion and attention levels (for students and teachers alike), how profiling balances with the human rights of the child, and the impact of commercial imperatives. Is the public good being served?
Outputs
Writing
McStay, A. (2022) Automated Empathy in Education. In L. Livingstone and K. Pothong (Eds) Digital Futures Commission.
McStay, A. (2022) Automated Empathy in Education. In L. Livingstone and K. Pothong (Eds) Education Data Futures: Critical Regulatory and Policy Futures. 5RightsFoundation. Online.
McStay, A. & Rosner, G. (2021) Emotional Artificial Intelligence in Children’s Toys and Devices: Ethics, Governance and Practical Remedies, Big Data & Society.
McStay, A. & Rosner, G. (2021) ““Emotoys”: Ethics, Emotions and Empathic Technologies” In A. Malinowska (Ed) Data Dating. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
McStay, A. (2019) Emotional AI and EdTech: Serving the Public Good, Learning Media & Technology.
Events
Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP 2020) panel. Slides and video.
Other
McStay, A. Rosner, G. Miyashita, H. and Urquhart, L. (2020) Comment on Children’s Rights In Relation To Emotional AI for UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
McStay cited/discussed in UNICEF (2020) Policy guidance on AI for children (input from McStay on Emotional AI)
FINAL PROJECT REPORT
Emotional AI and Children: Parents, Ethics, Governance (2020 Report)
