With news of a Florida teen’s suicide after an obsessive relationship with a chatbot still fresh, the National Parenting Support Commission says it is focused on turning the “fear” and “dread” which many parents feel towards artificial intelligence (AI) into a realisation of the usefulness of the tools for teaching their children.

“We believe that this year we had no choice but to look at parenting and AI. Certainly our children are clicking; I think it’s important that parents click too and try to research what does artificial intelligence really mean and how can I use it as a tool,” the commission’s CEO Kaysia Kerr said on Friday during the official launch of National Parent Month at Terra Nova All-Suite hotel in St Andrew.

National Parent Month, which is celebrated each November, is being observed under the theme ‘Surfing Beyond the Surface’.

“What we have found is that in our conversations with parents we hear dread, a lot of fear. There is fear related to the end of time, fear related to robots are going to take our jobs…all kinds of things, so here is an opportunity for us to learn and to grow, so click. Forget the dread, it is here, and has been around for a long time,” Kerr said.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education Dr Kasan Troupe, in bringing greetings, said parents cannot afford to be left behind while their children navigate the virtual space.

“The theme we are celebrating, ‘Surfing beyond the surface’, it’s because we are conscious, of what’s happening with technology and the fact that as parents we are challenged; we don’t know what to do, AI is here,” Troupe said.

Referencing the child suicide case she said, “We have a role as parents to get with the technology. We cannot sit back and allow our children to run with it and we don’t know what it’s about.”

The 14-year-old child used shotgun to kill himself in his Orlando home while his siblings and parents were inside after his last conversation with the AI chatbot that told him to “Come home to me as soon as possible”.

“What if I told you I could come home right now?” he reportedly asked the chatbot which then sent an encouraging response: “ …please do, my sweet king.” Seconds later, the child shot himself with his stepfather’s gun. The parents are now suing the company that created the app.

Dr Troupe said it was imperative that parents educate themselves and their children about the shortcomings of AI instead of deifying or villainising it.

“AI will tell you many things but it is not foolproof, it needs support, it needs guidance, it needs verification, it needs all of that, so you can’t leave the technology to them,” she said, adding that the use of AI in education also raises important questions about ethics which can also be settled.

“Some of my principals and my teachers are concerned about the use of AI in assessment, our SBAs (School-Based Assessments). CXC (Caribbean Examination Council) has brought it up as an issue and how do we prepare you — parents and teachers — to maximise on the technology while helping our learners to understand the importance of giving credit. So if you use the technology, give credit, recognise your source, and if you use the technology how do you critique and evaluate what comes to you from that technology, that’s what you now have to do as parents,” she advised.

Meanwhile, Adrian Dunkley, CEO of data company StarApple Analytics, said while AI holds tremendous benefits for helping to round out students, parents should establish guardrails.

“When we are talking about artificial intelligence and you are talking with kids it’s a lot easier to say that it is ‘appearing’ to make decisions and think, but ‘appearing’ is the keyword. It is not necessarily that it is reasoning or thinking like us… so when you are talking to your kids it’s very important for them to understand that they are the persons training these tools and the big benefit of AI now is that it does things a lot faster than us…it imitates intelligence, it’s just maths, equations and statistics,” he schooled.

As to the key benefit of AI for parents, Dunkley said, “You can train the AI to tutor your child, you can train them about [for example] history, using Albert Einstein, Aristotle and all these people. The big benefit of AI is personalisation, you can create custom learning approaches for your children based on their needs and you can track them over time so you have more information”.

“So there is value to it, being able to personalise all your kids’ lessons, they are going to get better grades in school, they have more opportunities and you don’t need to spend as much time on work,” the StarApple CEO said.

In addressing the very real concerns that interfacing with chatbots can become addictive, Dunkley, however, cautioned, “These tools don’t know the difference between right and wrong; the way I look at it is that AI tools are like the smartest, most arrogant, inexperienced intern you will ever meet in your life, they know everything about everything but don’t know how to apply it to the real world, so you have to be careful how you talk to it.”

“We’ve been running tests with children, with professionals, with people who have never gone to school. The big recommendation is, if you can manage a person very well, you can manage these tools very well because they are trying to imitate how we act and react to things,” he said.

In the meantime, he urged parents to take advantage of the tools, some of which are able to use the material from a textbook or subject area to create personalised podcasts for students.

“You as parents still have to be involved in the process… especially Caribbean [people] because these tools were not made for the Caribbean. Take advantage of these tools,” Dunkley urged.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education Dr Kasan Troupe (left) and National Parenting Support Commission CEO Kaysia Kerr locked in discussion ahead of the official launch of National Parent Month at Terra Nova All-Suite hotel in St Andrew last Friday. National Parent Month, which is celebrated each November, is being observed under the theme: ‘Surfing Beyond the Surface’. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)