“Robots can do disgusting things, but also good things:” Fostering children’s understanding of AI through storytelling

Abstract

In this research, we explore the use of storybooks as an educational tool for fostering a meaningful understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for children and consider how AI should be depicted in storybook narratives to achieve this. We present guidelines for the depiction of AI in narratives for four- to six-year-old children and deploy the guidelines to support the creation of two picture books. We assess both the guidelines and the resulting stories with children as experts and domain experts in the fields of education, technology, and storytelling. Our findings suggest there are advantages to using stories to communicate AI concepts due to their engaging and stimulating nature, and that the guidelines were useful and could be easily applied. The feedback from subject matter experts highlighted the value of the guidelines, but also reflected the ongoing challenges in defining a conceptually sound and meaningful depiction of AI for children.