AI systems are becoming increasingly pervasive within children’s devices, apps and services. The concern over a world where AI systems are deployed unchecked has raised burning questions about the impact, governance and accountability of these technologies. Although recent effort on AI ethics has converged into growing consensus on a set of high-level ethical AI principles, engagement with children’s issues is still limited, and even less is known about how to effectively apply them in practice for children. This Perspective first maps the current global landscape of existing ethics guidelines for AI and analyses their correlation with children. We then critically assess the strategies and recommendations proposed by current AI ethics initiatives, identifying the critical challenges in translating such ethical AI principles into practice for children. Finally, we tentatively map out several suggestions regarding embedding ethics into the development and governance of AI for children.

人工智能系统在儿童设备、应用程序和服务中变得越来越普遍。人们对人工智能系统不受控制地部署的世界的担忧引发了人们对这些技术的影响、治理和问责制的紧迫问题。尽管最近在人工智能伦理方面的努力已经在一系列高水平的人工智能伦理原则上达成了越来越多的共识，但对儿童问题的参与仍然有限，而且对于如何有效地将它们应用于儿童的实践中我们知之甚少。本视角首先描绘了当前人工智能现有道德准则的全球格局，并分析了它们与儿童的相关性。然后，我们批判性地评估当前人工智能伦理倡议提出的策略和建议，确定将此类人工智能伦理原则转化为儿童实践的关键挑战。最后，我们初步提出了一些关于将伦理嵌入到儿童人工智能的开发和治理中的建议。