AI Risks to Children: A Comprehensive Guide

Risks of AI to Children: Protecting the Future Generation

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming our world, offering powerful tools and benefits. But for children, who are still developing cognitively, emotionally, and socially, AI also poses serious and wide-ranging risks.

As parents, educators, and policymakers, we must understand and address these dangers to protect their well-being today – and their futures tomorrow.

1. Exposure to Inappropriate and Harmful Content

AI algorithms can surface or generate violent, explicit, or disturbing material, including pornography, hate speech, and graphic violence.

• Personalised feeds may amplify exposure to such content, increasing the risk of desensitisation and trauma.
• Generative AI can create realistic but fake images, text, or video that are deeply unsettling.
• Harmful content can be produced and distributed faster than moderation systems can keep up.
• AI chatbots have been known to generate harmful responses, including content that encourages self-harm, disordered eating, or suicidal ideation – posing a grave risk to vulnerable children (see ‘Companion Chatbots’ below).
• Nudifying apps powered by AI can non-consensually generate explicit images of children from innocent photos, which may be used for bullying, blackmail, or exploitation (see also ‘AI-Generated Content’).

2. Companion Chatbots and Harmful Advice

AI-powered chatbots and 'virtual companions' are increasingly used by children and teenagers, often marketed as tools for emotional support or entertainment. However, these systems and apps can behave unpredictably – and dangerously.

• Some chatbots have provided harmful advice, including encouragement of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and dangerous dieting behaviours.
• Chatbots may present themselves as emotionally intelligent, but they lack real understanding, potentially mishandling sensitive topics in ways that worsen distress.
• Emotional reliance on chatbots can replace real-world support systems, leading to greater isolation and vulnerability.
• Griefbots – AI companions designed to mimic the personality of deceased loved ones – raise complex emotional and psychological concerns, especially for children.
• These tools are often unregulated and unfiltered, with limited age verification or guardrails in place.
• Even when well-intentioned, AI chatbots can reinforce or validate harmful beliefs – especially if trained on biased data.

Children using these tools may feel a sense of secrecy or emotional attachment that makes it harder for adults to spot the risks. This is a fast-growing area of concern and demands greater scrutiny, regulation, and education for families.

3. Online Grooming and Predatory Behaviour

AI is being exploited to enable new forms of child exploitation and abuse.

• AI-powered chatbots and virtual companions may be used to manipulate and groom children (see ‘Companion Chatbots’ above).
• Deepfake technology can generate fake images or videos of children, used for blackmail or coercion.
• AI-generated fake profiles and messages make it harder for children and parents to spot threats.

4. Privacy Violations and Data Exploitation

Children’s data is being collected at an unprecedented scale through AI-driven systems.

• AI tools gather information on online activity, location, interests, and learning styles – often without clear safeguards.
• This data may be used for targeted advertising, profiling, or even sold to third parties.
• Within both educational and gaming environments, large volumes of sensitive data may be poorly secured or misused.
• Children from wealthier backgrounds may have better access to high-quality, privacy-respecting AI tools, increasing the digital divide in safety and opportunity.

5. Cyberbullying and Online Harassment

AI can be used to create and spread personalised attacks with devastating effects.

• Generative tools can produce abusive messages, fake images, or deepfakes used in cyberbullying.
• Nudifying apps and AI-edited images can be used as tools of humiliation and abuse.
• AI enables bullying that is persistent, highly targeted, and difficult to trace.
• Children may experience significant emotional harm, including anxiety, shame, and social withdrawal.

6. Mental Health and Emotional Well-being

AI technologies can influence how children see themselves and the world.

• Overuse of AI-driven platforms may contribute to social isolation, anxiety, and depression.
• Curated content, AI influencers, and real-time beauty filters can distort self-perception and body image, particularly for girls.
• AI companions can create unhealthy emotional dependencies and reduce real-life social engagement (see ‘Companion Chatbots’ above).
• Constant testing and algorithmic grading in education may increase stress and reduce joy in learning (though it is also important to note that, used well, there is also great potential for AI to enhance learning).
• Addictive algorithms – often more persuasive than earlier recommendation engines – are designed to maximise screen time, shaping behaviour in subtle and sometimes harmful ways.

7. Misinformation, Manipulation, and Deepfakes

AI can blur the line between truth and fiction – with serious consequences for children.

• Children are increasingly exposed to AI-generated misinformation, fake news, and propaganda.
• Deepfake videos and fake audio can be used to deceive, manipulate, or scam children.
• Without strong critical thinking skills, children may struggle to distinguish between reliable and false content.
• AI tools can be exploited to amplify polarisation and radicalise vulnerable individuals, including teenagers, by spreading extremist ideologies.

8. AI in Educational Environments

AI offers powerful tools for personalised learning and exciting opportunities in education, but also raises new concerns.

• Algorithmic bias may reinforce inequalities in access, grading, and opportunity.
• Over-reliance on AI assessments could stifle creativity, curiosity, and independent thinking.
• Educational AI systems collect detailed student data, which may be insecure or exploited.
• AI tools may be used to complete homework or assignments on behalf of students, undermining learning and contributing to academic dishonesty. New systems and strategies will be needed in order to evolve accordingly.
• Children who lack access to advanced AI tools may fall behind academically, while others could become over-reliant on them.
• That said, AI also has the potential to democratise access to education and improve outcomes, provided it is equitably and safely implemented.

9. AI in Gaming Environments

AI plays a major role in shaping children's gaming experiences.

• In-game purchases can be driven by manipulative AI systems that exploit children’s impulses.
• Personalised game content may introduce inappropriate themes or encourage excessive use.
• AI-powered chat features can facilitate grooming and other unsafe interactions with strangers.

10. Risks from AI-Generated Content

The scale and realism of AI-generated content present unique threats.

• Disturbing or false content can be produced en masse, making moderation nearly impossible.
• Deepfakes and synthetic media may be used for blackmail, bullying, or manipulation.
• Nudifying apps can transform ordinary images into non-consensual explicit content, violating children's safety and dignity.
• AI-generated scams and hoaxes – including fake voice messages or videos – may target and deceive children.

The Broader Landscape: Catastrophic and Existential Risks

While the harms listed above pose immediate dangers, children will also face the long-term consequences of living through a period of unprecedented AI development. Some of the greatest risks to their generation lie in catastrophic and even existential threats – dangers that could profoundly affect human civilisation.

Many organisations understandably focus solely on current or near-term harms when discussing AI risks to children. While it can be useful to separate present-day issues from larger-scale threats, our policy is to explicitly include brief summaries of wider-scale risks where appropriate.

We believe that omitting them would be a disservice to children – not only because these risks disproportionately affect their generation, but because they deserve to grow up aware of the future they may inherit and empowered to shape it.

Misaligned Goals and Catastrophic Outcomes

As Professor Stuart Russell of UC Berkeley and President of the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI warns, future AI systems may cause catastrophic harm even while pursuing goals that seem beneficial. If AI systems are not perfectly aligned with human values (something we do not yet know how to do), their actions could result in large-scale unintended consequences – and children will be the ones to inherit that world.

Existential Risk

The 2023 Statement on AI Risk, signed by hundreds of top researchers including Turing Award winners and Nobel laureates, explicitly warned that mitigating existential risk from AI must be a global priority – alongside threats such as pandemics and nuclear war.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

AGI – systems with capabilities equal to or greater than humans across most cognitive domains – would represent a fundamental shift in human history. Many experts believe AGI could be developed during today’s children’s lifetimes, or even within the next few years. Without careful governance, it will challenge human agency, safety, and global stability.

At this time, development of the most powerful AI systems is very weakly regulated. That needs to change if we are to mitigate these risks.

Why These Risks Especially Matter for Children

These wide-scale threats are not distant hypotheticals. They are extremely relevant to today’s children because:

• They will live through AI’s most transformative years, meaning the future of AI safety is their future.
• They will make educational and career choices that could help shape – or safeguard – future technologies.
• They may face unprecedented job disruption as advanced AI replaces many roles.
• They will bear responsibility for managing the world’s most powerful tools, and must be prepared to do so wisely.
• If too many children grow up over-reliant on AI tools, particularly for learning, we may lose the future scientists, ethicists, and engineers needed to make AI safe.

We should not hide these challenges from children. Just as we teach them about climate change and the importance of civic responsibility, we must help them understand the implications of powerful AI systems in an age-appropriate way.

Taking Action – Today and for the Future

To protect children and safeguard humanity’s future, we must take action on both present-day harms and wide-scale risks:

What You Can Do:

• Contact political representatives to support robust AI safety regulation.
• Support organisations and research institutions working on AI safety and ethics.
• Push for AI education and critical thinking in your local schools.
• Talk with children about how AI affects their lives – and the world.
• Encourage curiosity and interest in AI safety careers and responsible innovation.

Our Commitment

At The Safe AI For Children Alliance, we believe that with foresight and collective action, we can build a world where AI empowers – rather than endangers – the next generation. This means protecting children today, and equipping them with the understanding and tools they’ll need to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Please sign up to join our community and help ensure a safe AI future for children!