We should be the last people to ask, or the first: we build AI for children. And our honest answer is one most AI companies will not give you. No, your child should not use AI. Not the AI most people mean by the word.
The chatbots and apps in the news were built for adults. They will talk about anything, they are wrong with total confidence, they are engineered to keep a user engaged, and they will happily fill the hours a childhood is supposed to spend elsewhere. Handing one to a four year old is handing over the open internet with a friendlier face.
The question hiding inside the question
But notice what we are actually afraid of: unlimited content, no adult in the loop, engagement without end, and a machine that talks at a child rather than with them. Those are design choices. Which means they can be designed out.
A tool with AI inside can be built the opposite way: a closed world instead of an open internet, answers filtered for the age of the listener, a parent who can read every word, and no feed, no points, no reason to stay one minute past the fun. At that point the question stops being should kids use AI and becomes the same question you ask about any toy: what does it actually do to the hours it fills?
The checklist, whoever is selling
So judge anything with AI inside, ours included, on five things: Can it reach the open internet? Is every response filtered for your child's age? Can you read the full history? Does it profit from more minutes? And does it talk with your child, questions and turns, or perform at them? Four good answers is a tool. Fewer is a slot machine with a cartoon on it.
AI near children is not a yes or no. It is a who-built-this and why. Ask that question loudly and often, and make every company answer it in plain words. Here are ours, on our Safety page.
