Ethics, Safety, and Futures with AI

This unit examines ethical, safety, and developmental implications of AI for children and learning environments, including bias, manipulation, surveillance, deepfakes, and impacts on future jobs. It builds on foundational AI literacy and prepares students to design age-appropriate pedagogy, risk mitigation strategies, and policy-informed classroom practices in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze how AI-related biases, nudging, and deepfakes can affect children’s learning, development, and trust by citing at least three concrete examples and their pedagogical consequences
• Evaluate ethical and safety implications of AI technologies (including surveillance systems, lethal autonomous weapons awareness, and AI-enabled human trafficking risks) on a child’s present and future environment and propose at least two evidence-based mitigation strategies
• Develop at least one age-appropriate lesson outline or family communication plan that teaches children about AI, creativity, and anticipated changes to work, demonstrating alignment with child development principles
• Demonstrate the ability to assess and recommend classroom or school-level policies that preserve human agency and privacy (e.g., limits on AI surveillance, human-in-the-loop decisions, human-only task prioritization) by producing a one-page guideline for educators