Carina Prunkl: Learning to think with AI: children’s agency and the problem of reliance

What does it mean for a child to have agency? Children exercise agency while many of the capacities that support it are still developing, and while they depend extensively on others and on their surrounding environment. Increasingly, they also rely on generative AI to answer questions and solve problems. Such systems can expand what children are able to do, while also taking over parts of inquiry and judgment.

This lecture asks how we should think about reliance on AI when that reliance may itself shape the development of epistemic capacities. Reliance is part of how children’s agency develops: children learn through dependence on others and on technologies. Yet some forms of reliance may also undermine the capacities that make agency possible. So, when, and in what ways, does reliance become overreliance?