What does AI owe Children? Panel at Paris Peace Forum

What does AI owe Children? iRAISE Proactive Approach for Beneficial AI for Children

This public panel addressed a simple but consequential question: what does AI owe children? The session brought together leaders from international organizations, industry, and research to examine how current AI design choices will shape children’s cognitive, emotional, and social development over the long term.

I moderated the discussion, framing it around a shift from reactive risk mitigation to development-first, beneficial design. The conversation was anchored in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in established knowledge about sensitive periods in child and adolescent development. Panelists explored what makes AI fundamentally different from earlier digital technologies: its speed of adoption, generative nature, and capacity for one-to-one interactions that can feel emotionally meaningful to young users.

The panel featured Cécile Aptel (Deputy Director, UNICEF), Lauren Jonas (Head of Youth Well-Being, OpenAI), and Michael Preston (Executive Director, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Sesame Workshop), with participation from Google.

The discussion surfaced real tensions faced across sectors, including the mismatch between rapid AI development and slower research and regulatory cycles, the challenge of building for children with incomplete evidence, and the need for clearer responsibility by role. Panelists pointed toward practical near-term actions, such as age-appropriate defaults, clearer signals about what AI is and is not, participatory design with children and adolescents, and stronger alignment between research, standards, and policy.

The session concluded with a shared understanding that AI owes children more than protection from harm. It owes them intentional design choices, accountability, and sustained cross-sector collaboration grounded in children’s rights and developmental realities.