It was bound to happen sooner or later. The dreaded AI has entered the chat when it comes to elementary school-aged kids. Or, rather, it has entered the classroom. It might be there in small ways, like a coloring page your first grader brought home with a clear image of animated AI-generated characters. Or, in one mom’s case, it’s an AI-generated image of her own child that was made without express permission from her as the mother.
The mom, Nikki Anderson, posted on Instagram about a photo that her daughter Harper brought home, depicting what the 6-year-old might look like as an adult in her dream job, which is in the nursing field. But the image was immediately a concern for Nikki, which she shared in her post. Because who was given permission to use the image, what program was it fed into, and who has the rights to the image now?
A mom called out an AI photo of her daughter that her school created.
In her post, Nikki shared that her daughter brought home artwork that she made showing herself as a nurse someday. Along with it, though, she had a photo of what AI thinks she might look like as an adult.
“They’re going to spend the next twelve years being measured, ranked, standardized, and gradually molded into whatever our economy has decided makes a person useful,” Nikki wrote, of her daughter and children in general. “Can we at least leave their imaginations alone? Why do adults feel the need to insert a multibillion dollar industry into something children already do better than us? To what? Make it more impressive? More marketable? More worth looking at? I don’t think the children are the ones who need help imagining a future.”
In the comments, parents and even teachers shared their thoughts on the use of AI in the classroom and when it comes to kids’ images.
“Given that there is SO much in the news about AI generated CSAM, it seems especially egregious for a school to put children’s pictures through AI,” someone commented.
A teacher added, “As a teacher, we are absolutely prohibited from uploading any identifying information into any AI sites. It’s a FERPA violation as that information then belongs to the search engine/generator for public use.”
Another teacher shared a story that is eerily similar to what Nikki experienced. They wrote that a staff meeting included instructions of how to do exactly what Harper’s teacher did.
“Where is the consent from parents? This is NOT ok to do without parental consent,” they wrote in the comments. “I personally as a teacher don’t want my face to be put into AI and would be livid if my kids was without my consent first.”
The mom said she doesn’t want to “outsource” her daughter’s imagination.
In her post on Instagram, Nikki pointed out how Harper already made a picture of what she thinks a nurse looks like and what she might look like in the profession someday. In her post, Nikki shared other pieces of artwork that Harper made, and each one is indicative of the little girl’s imagination.
“I don’t want my daughter to see AI as something magical before teaching her what it does (or ever),” Nikki wrote on top of one of the photos in the Instagram post. “I don’t want to outsource her own imagination.”
The AI-generated image gave Harper a computer’s idea of what it looks like to be an adult woman in the medical field. It’s a clearer image than what Harper might have been able to conjure up herself, and one of the many things that seem to concern Nikki is that Harper might see the depiction as far more accurate than her own imaginings. It’s a terrifying thought for any parent.
Her daughter admitted she hopes she looks like the AI-generated photo someday.
One of the biggest issues with the AI-generated depiction of Harper’s image as an adult nurse might be Harper’s own reaction to it. The 6-year-old told her mother that she likes the way she looks in the flash-forward picture that an algorithm came up with based on what she looks like now, and that’s worrisome for Nikki.
The mom told People, “She said that she loved the picture because she had straight and wavy hair and that is what she always wanted, and she hopes she would be that beautiful when she grows up, but she said that it was just a guess so there’s a chance that ‘I won’t look like that…I hope I do.’”
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