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By Iris Garcia-HernandezJuly 11, 20260 comments
Why AI Regulation Matters for Children
Initiative 25-0036A1 Child Safety Requirements for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Products, Including Chatbots, posits an important ideal within child safety requirements regarding the use of AI among children under the age of 18.
The ballot works to require providers of systems using or distributing AI to utilize technological advancements to not only estimate user’s ages but create parental control settings within their systems to limit minors’ use. It also works to require assessments annually of child-safety risks and publish a policy to explain the risks and mitigations of AI. In terms of working with this, the initiative works to submit annual safety audits and relay any findings to the attorney general.
Overall, the initiative works to protect minors from the selling of their privacy and within this, it works to limit their access to AI, so as to provide a reduced reliance on the system itself. It is with this information that I believe you, as a California voter, should endorse this initiative. This initiative will help your children, nieces or nephews maintain and cultivate relationships with their teachers that will provide them with knowledge on an academic level, without a reliance on AI.
Technology is ever changing, thus offering children a new avenue of technology to interact with often. In doing this, programs like AI have become especially prominent in the classroom, offering concerns from parents and teachers alike. In the risks associated with AI, 70% of teachers have developed the fear that the programs weaken critical thinking and research skills. Within this, the use of AI within schools, has also developed a breeding ground for sexual harassment, bullying and unfair treatment amongst children. It is due to these progressing reasons that this initiative calls for AI regulation amongst children in schools.
In choosing to endorse this initiative, you could fundamentally change the status quo of your young loved one’s upbringing. You could redirect the prioritization of AI within schools with this vote.
You could fundamentally and foundationally instill the limitation of AI usage among children within your schools, this leading to more jobs for educators, translators and necessary faculty. Thus, leading to your child cultivating better connections with their educators and you with parental constituents.
In endorsing the regulation of AI among children you will join the likes of teachers’ part of the CTA like iThomas Courtney, who believe that though AI is not something to be feared in the classroom, it is something to reprioritize. In his words, “AI can relegate tasks to students about environmental issues. AI can teach and even assess content about environmental issues. But AI cannot teach the type of stewardship for the environment that real humans do in various organizations nationwide.”
Think about the education system as a whole and its importance on being an environment where knowledge is cultivated and taught, not just mindlessly looked up. Think about the continuation and cultivation of knowledge and creativity; if not for the regulation of AI among children, how will our future adults gain experience or gain the desire to acquire the knowledge to cultivate these skills.
I urge you to consider your endorsement of this initiative.
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AI chatbotsAI Regulationartificial intelligenceCalifornia Ballot InitiativeChild SafetyOnline PrivacyParental Controls
