Scaffolding Children's critical reflection on intelligent technologies: Opportunities from speculative fiction

Abstract

Current technological development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) requires educational practices that address the social and ethical implications derived from these emerging technologies. To this end, an increasing number of educational practices are pursuing the goal of supporting children's critical reflection on these topics. Our research aims at understanding how speculative fiction-based resources can meet and respond to the goals of supporting children's critical reflection on AI technologies and their impact on society. Through revisiting relevant literature on these topics and critically analyzing our own practices in three different settings, we identify a set of opportunities and challenges oriented at guiding the design of resources capable of taking advantage of speculative fiction as a way to support critical reflection.