Responding to the problematisation, we pursued two main objectives: 1: To explore and understand how schoolchildren interact with different types of AI-based conversational agents and how they perceive these conversational agents compared to their existing social others (such as family, friends, and teachers). This objective has been addressed in work packages 1 (conceptual development) as well as 2 and 3 (field study). 2: To equip schoolchildren as digital natives and their caregivers with hands-on knowledge in dealing with the rapid advancement of smart technologies, especially those that appear to be social and human-like in either appearance or intelligence. This objective has addressed in work package 4 (project blog and a collection of short stories).
We observed the abundance of smart toys, adaptive learning applications, and digital assistants for schoolchildren on the market. These products are artificial intelligence (AI) based conversational agents that can communicate using natural language. The COVID19 pandemic probably played an important role in promoting their adoption. The truth is, however inconvenient, that we still do not know much about how schoolchildren harness these AI-based conversational agents for their benefits. Because of the way they are designed (i.e., real touchable physique versus digital character), schoolchildren may have different kinds of interaction and experience with them. Moreover, they may be perceived differently because of their communication modalities (i.e., text, voice, or gestures). This project addressed a discussion that is likely to become more glaring in the next years, due to the increasing adoption of in AI-based conversational agents and generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT) for learning and leisure activities.