Randi Williams

And for context, I had to know how to read, write and type before I could ask Jeeves a question.

But for her, not so much.

But secondly, I was a little bit disappointed that this girl didn't think that my super cool robot was so super cool.

And when I took a step back, I realized it wasn't just her.

We are raising a generation of children who are growing up with AI and smart toys.

And they tend to see these devices not as virtual assistants or technology, but as friends, distinct beings with a mind, a will and a soul.

And that made me really curious about what children make of this technology.

How much do they understand about what's going on?

So to investigate that question, I ran a study, and I had 30 children between the ages of three and 11 come together to interact with a whole bunch of different smart toys all at once.

We had toy robots, talking dolls, text-based chatbots, and of course, plenty of virtual assistants like Alexa and Google Home.

One of the girls in the study, her favorite animal, they were sloths.

She loved sloths.

She'd been telling us all day how much she loved sloths.

And so naturally, when she got hold of an Alexa, she wanted to learn more about sloths from Alexa.

So she picks up Alexa and says, Alexa, what do sloths eat?

And then Alexa very helpfully replied, I'm sorry, I don't know how to help you with that.

The girl looked disappointed for a second, and then all of a sudden perked right back up.

Oh, I know, she says, and she picked up a second Alexa.

I'll see if this one knows.

The limitations of AI are not only frustrating and confusing for children, but research in child-robot interaction shows that it can make them vulnerable to even more serious risks, like manipulation or accidental exposure to inappropriate content or security breaches.