By admin 
Your child is unlikely to learn an essential lesson at school this year: how to stay safe when using AI.
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Just 30% of teens say a teacher has ever talked about how to use AI safely, according to a new survey of 13- to 17-year-olds by Common Sense Media.
The results suggest that young people aren’t having conversations about AI literacy — including how to stay safe, how artificial intelligence works and how to figure out whether chatbots are accurate, study coauthor Michael Robb said.
“For the most part, they’re just not happening yet,” said Robb, head of research at Common Sense Media, a San-Francisco-based children’s media and education nonprofit.
One limitation of the study is students may not have been aware of what’s included in their school curricula, Robb said. Common Sense Media also doesn’t know how effective AI instruction is for the minority of teens who get it, he said.
Unsurprisingly, the study also found that 70% of teens use AI for their homework.
Parents probably already knew that they need to talk to their children about how they can make sure AI doesn’t replace their learning. I’ve previously explained how to do so — and how to teach kids to protect their privacy and fact-check the information they get from AI.
But did you know you also need to talk to your kids about how to stay safe when they encounter content made with AI?
When it comes to AI, “we have been a little bit bogged down in really simplistic questions of ‘do you use it to cheat or not?’” Robb said. That line of questioning doesn’t address whether kids are doing other harmful things, such as engaging with nude deepfakes.
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Nude deepfakes are rampant
Nude deepfakes are AI-created images or video that are pornographic or make a person appear to be undressed.
Creating nude deepfakes is “at the level where you could almost consider it normal behavior for adolescents,” said Dr. Chad Steel, an adjunct professor of digital forensics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, who was not involved in the study.
“There is a fundamental underestimation and probably adult misconception about how often and how familiar adolescents are with using Gen AI,” Steel said, referring to generative AI.
Because nude deepfakes are new, experts don’t know the lasting effects on victims, Steel said. However, researchers do know that victims of child sexual abuse material are sometimes contacted or tracked down by people who access the content throughout their lives, he noted. The images could also be used by predators who can threaten to send them to a potential victim’s parents or friends unless kids pay them or meet other demands.
As I’ve warned before, when intimate images of a person end up online, it can make it harder for them to date or get a job and puts them at greater risk of sexual assault, depression and suicide.
How to get help
- If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit the 988 Lifeline website.
So, what should parents do about this risk?
Offer specific safety tips
First, talk to your kids about why they should never create, share or engage with nude deepfakes.
One reason kids may be so comfortable using AI to create sexual content is because they are familiar with apps that allow them to “try on” clothes by showing their avatar wearing them. Your children therefore may not understand the scope of the difference between trying a swimsuit on a figure that looks like them online and not wearing clothes at all, according to Steel.
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Kids “certainly don’t understand how to protect themselves, and that these images may be permanent, and may be out there forever,” he said.
For better or worse, young people are turning to AI chatbots for emotional support
Steel suggested explaining to kids that once sexualized images are posted online, people can save them to their private image archives or personal devices, and it can become impossible to get them out of the public sphere.
It’s also important to teach younger kids and teens how to avoid becoming victims of nude deepfakes created by others. Once they post an ordinary image of themselves online, anyone with access to it could use AI to place the photo of their head on an image of a nude body.
To prevent this from happening, teach kids only to post photos privately — not on public accounts — and to make sure they can trust their friends and followers, Steel suggested.
Limiting the access of strangers to our kids’ photos and educating kids about the harms of deepfakes is the best way to protect them, he said.
Talk to your kids by fifth grade
These talks should happen at younger ages than parents may realize. If kids start talking about sexualized content in third or fourth grade, that’s your cue to have this conversation, said Justine Carino, a psychotherapist based in New York’s Westchester County who treats young people and was also not involved in the study. Otherwise, by fifth grade, initiate the conversation yourself, she said.
“A lot of parents have this myth,” Carino said. They worry that if they talk about topics related to sex, they’ll give their kids permission to have sex. “Actually, the opposite has been proven true,” she said. Have the conversation a little bit before you think you’re supposed to, “because then it’s proactive and preventative.”
It’s also important to teach kids what to do if their friends make or share nude deepfakes, Carino said.
“We need to talk to our kids about having confidence to stand up for what we think is right and wrong and say, ‘No, I don’t want to be involved in this, and I don’t think that’s a good idea for you to do either,’” she said.
Kids need to know “you never have to say ‘yes’ to make someone else accept you,” Carino said. “You never have to say ‘yes’ to make sure you have friends. Friends are going to ask things of you that you’re uncomfortable with and you’re allowed to say ‘no.’”
Also remind your kids they can come to you for help, she said. You can say something like, “If you see a friend doing something that is unsafe or risky, I hope you tell a trusted adult, like me as mom or dad or a teacher, or a coach, or your friend’s parent.”
These kinds of conversations can help protect kids against other dangers, too. “The more you initiate these conversations, the more comfortable your kids are going to be with coming to you if anything pops up in their life,” Carino said.
Keeping open dialogue with your kids will help them develop skills that will also serve them well before parents wise up to whatever online danger comes next.
Kara Alaimo is a professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University and advises parents, students and teachers on how to manage screen time. Her book “Over the Influence: Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — And How We Can Take It Back” was published in 2024.
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