Towards Children-Centred Trustworthy Conversational Agents

Abstract

Conversational agents (CAs) have been increasingly used in various domains, including education, health and entertainment. One of the growing areas of research is the use of CAs with children. However, the development and deployment of CAs for children come with many specific challenges and ethical and social responsibility concerns. This chapter aims to review the related work on CAs and children, point out the most popular topics and identify opportunities and risks. We also present our proposal for ethical guidelines on the development of trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI), which provide a framework for the ethical design and deployment of CAs with children. The chapter highlights, among other principles, the importance of transparency and inclusivity to safeguard user rights in AI technologies. Additionally, we present the adaptation of previous AI ethical guidelines to the specific case of CAs and children, highlighting the importance of data protection and human agency. Finally, the application of ethical guidelines to the design of a conversational agent is presented, serving as an example of how these guidelines can be integrated into the development process of these systems. Ethical principles should guide the research and development of CAs for children to enhance their learning and social development.