Ep 146: How AI Impacts Our Teens

John Zerilli, PhD, author of A Citizen’s Guide to Artificial
Intelligence, clues us in on how AI is affecting us right now and
what it means for our teens and families. Plus, John’s prediction
for when AI could take over--and what skills teens should hone in
preparation.


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Full show notes


Our kids are growing up in a world where technology is expanding
at a mind blowing pace! Every year they find themselves with
shiny new social media apps, ten new video games that they HAVE
to play, and fancy devices that are so much cooler than what came
out last year. As a parent you may feel unsure about the best way
to raise your teens in this tech-filled world. How can you get
them to put down their phone and focus on college apps? Or even
just go outside and get a little exercise?


While all this tech can be a distraction, it can also be pretty
dangerous. There are some pretty frightening parts of the online
landscape! Kids might accidentally find themselves entrenched in
a hate group or engaged in dark, fringe content. Not to mention
that as coders and computer experts become better and better at
programming artificial intelligence, teens might find their
future jobs at risk–or even experience prejudice as a result of
robotic resume readers!


How is that all possible, you ask? John Zerilli, AI expert and
this week’s guest, is here to tell us. He’s a research fellow at
the University of Cambridge, and the author of A Citizen’s Guide
to Artificial Intelligence. John predicts that in the coming
years, AI is poised to infiltrate every area of our lives. He
believes everyone has a right to be educated about it! He's here
today to chat about how we can guide our teens through the coming
technological revolution and ensure that they have bright and
prosperous futures.


In today’s interview, we’re discussing how we can make cyberspace
a safer place for kids. We’re also talking about how the job
market is changing as AI grows in relevance and explains how
racial and gender biases can be perpetuated by computer programs.
So stick around, because you're not going to want to miss out on
all this fascinating tech talk!


Setting Rules for Safe Browsing


For young people with curious minds, a simple visit to Youtube or
Facebook can sometimes end in a bad place. Although they might
not seek out damaging material, the algorithms on these websites
can often act as a rabbit hole, John explains. Teens can find
themselves pulled deeper and deeper into something dark just
because it might pique interest or fascination. As they click,
they get further from where they started and more engrossed into
Q-Anon conspiracies, pornography or even racially offensive
content.


Luckily, there are ways we can combat this. John and I emphasize
the value of setting rules and guidelines for kids’ internet use
so they don’t find themselves spiraling into harmful stuff. In
the episode, we dive deeper into how we can help teens create
these boundaries for safer internet use. We also talk about how
important it can be to have conversations with kids about
thinking critically when they consume content. John explained how
we can guide them to shift through the material and separate the
truth from the fiction.


When encouraging teens to think about the way they interact
online, John also recommends talking to them about the “Echo
Chamber”. This is a common trap social media users fall into,
where they only interact with content that reinforces their own
biases and viewpoints. You may have seen how this phenomenon
affects adults, especially when it comes to politics! Teens can
be just as vulnerable to this effect, if not more so, so John
says it’s important to chat with them about being open minded
before they find themselves unable to even consider other
viewpoints besides their own.


Another place where the expansion of tech causes some questions
and concerns from worried parents is the future job market. Are
there going to be less opportunities when things become more
automated? Are there more careers in tech spaces as computers
become more powerful? What can we do to ensure our kids will
thrive in a future driven by robotics?


Coming of Age in the Digital Age


Although many people are worried that automation will wreak havoc
on the job market, John says that there’s no cause for concern
just yet. We’re still far from a future of robot butlers and
flying cars.


John explains that there are two kinds of AI: weak and strong.
Weak AI is what we use in our daily lives, programs like Siri or
Alexa, or the algorithm on Amazon which tells us which sweatpants
we should buy. Strong AI is much more complex and sophisticated.
For an automated program to fall into this category, it would
have to be able to think like a human, moving from task to task
with ease and understanding the complicated implications behind a
simple command, says John.


For example, if you told a robot to “go to the store and pick up
milk”, it would likely stroll down to the store, find a carton of
milk, physically pick it up….and that’s all! For the program to
understand that it needs to actually purchase the milk and bring
it home, it would need to be at a higher level of intelligence
than it is currently possible to program. This kind of machine
thinking is what John describes as the “holy grail” of AI, and
won’t be reached for at least one hundred years, according to
John.


But still, it’s easy to be worried that teens are entering a
less-than lucrative job market as things become more automated.
So what kind of jobs should they be pursuing? In the episode,
John and I delve deep into which jobs are at risk and which ones
are safe. We also discuss how we can revisit our education system
to ensure that kids are prepared for the obstacles they’ll face
as they enter this new digital reality.


Interestingly, there are other parts of AI that might make your
kids job search difficult. Although it may seem counterintuitive,
AI has been proven to have racial and gender biases. You want
your kid to have just as many opportunities as anyone else..so
how can combat this confusing conundrum?


Programs and Prejudice


How could I robot possibly perpetuate discrimination? Aren’t they
supposed to be purely logical? I was fascinated to hear John
explain in our interview that because an overwhelming majority of
computer programmers are whie men, the programs they build have
been shown to work for white men much better than those of
diverse identities. A classic example is facial recognition
software! Programs intended to classify an individual's face are
often much more effective at identifying specific white men, but
not those of different ethnicities.


Although it seems like computers would be free of opinion, they
tend to pass along the biases of those who program them. As John
says, “rubbish in, rubbish out.” This same problem occurs when
computers sift through stacks of resumes. When tests have been
run to see how effective computers are at choosing candidates,
researchers have found that programs just throw out any name that
sounds feminine, severely limiting the chances of female
applicants!


John explains that this is likely because, historically, women
tend to leave their places of work earlier rather than later, due
to pregnancy. Of...