AI: let’s exercise young people’s discernment!
This month, the European Parliament adopted the AI Act in plenary session. This text is designed to better regulate the riskiest practices, prohibit some of them, and encourage innovation in the European Union as a whole. The stakes are high with the arrival of multimodal AIs, which can be destabilizing because they interweave numerous data sources such as images, audio, video and text. Young people are particularly at risk, as they are eager to learn thanks to AI. By accompanying them, we can enable them to benefit from significant development experiences. Let’s exercise their capacity for discernment!
From unimodal to multimodal AI: developments are gathering pace
Whereas we used to have “unimodal” AI tools, which accepted only one type of input, such as text, we are now seeing a number of multimodal AIs being developed by the tech giants. These platforms support all types of data: images, text, audio and video. We can send them an image, for example, and ask them what they understand about it, how they can describe it, and even facial or object modifications. In response, in a matter of seconds, we’ll get a descriptive text and, above all, a modified image!
To take things a step further, if we send them a business plan, they’ll be able to analyze it and judge its quality!
As was the case when OpenIA launched ChatGPT on a text basis, there were many questions, with a split between enthusiasm and skepticism, and fears about the emergence of inappropriate and false content, for example. However, last December, Ipsos conducted a study for Sopra Steria on this generative AI. And the results are clear: more than half of respondents are familiar with this AI tool and have already used it (based on a sample of 1,000 people aged 18 and over constituting a nationally representative sample of the French metropolitan population). This suggests that multimodal platforms, which are more complex to understand because they are open to a multitude of different data sources, will gain in importance.
Rapidly raising awareness among young people
In the same study, it was confirmed that ChatGPT is especially well known among younger people, with 72% of those under 35 years of age aware of the tool. Minors and young adults are particularly at risk. In January 2023, the Mozilla Foundation reported, according to a survey conducted in several countries, including France, that by the age of 11, almost nine out of ten children are already using the Internet. As adults, we’re already not sufficiently informed and trained in the proper use of these tools, so imagine the younger ones! Let’s use them with caution, because they’re not creative tools, they’re tools for repeating human tasks.
Today, young people have a real assistant in their hands with artificial intelligence. It’s a bot with which they can interact and which can explain everything to them. But our brains need to be trained, just like muscles. And the risk is that they won’t feel this need anymore, because this assistant is thinking for them!
So how can we help them preserve and develop their thinking skills? By familiarizing ourselves, as parents and teachers, with these tools, understanding how they work and supervising their use. Our capacity for discernment will then be all the more valuable. But above all, we need to guide them to develop their own sense of discernment and intellectual resistance. These are essential assets if they are to make free, informed and fair choices.
The stakes are all the higher as these AI platforms begin to understand our emotions.
The next stage in multimodal AI, on which the tech giants are actively working, will take our emotions into account. In fact, some software is already beginning to track our behavior: our faces, our hands, our movements more generally. By integrating this new data, the responses provided by these tools will be more personalized for each user. This could reinforce mistrust as to their veracity or impartiality.
Nevertheless, the opportunities offered by AI are undeniable. It can fully reinforce our knowledge and promote better understanding, as well as encouraging us to carry out a detailed analysis of the data it makes available. In the case of the very young, it can accelerate their experience, as long as they are able to absorb information with discernment.
By Rabih AMHAZ, Head of the Digital Department. Lecturer-Researcher, Icam Strasbourg-Europe site