ABSTRACT
The chapter presents a learning activity carried out with Year 5 children, in 2023, in a primary school in Turin and a primary school in London within the CAIRε international research project (University of Turin and Middlesex University, London) on fostering a reflective and critical relationship with AI technologies in primary school. The activity consisted in children drafting their own Ethical Charter on the use of Artificial Intelligence. The research methodology used was art-based participatory action-research framed within an ecopedagogical Freirian perspective. The chosen research methodology, action-research, was adopted because of its capacity to positively engage the participants in the development of the critical and creative processes of human experience leading to an understanding of social contexts transformation through the use of applied and contemplative aesthetic experiences. The activity can be characterised as having an ecopedagogical Freirian perspective because it is aimed at developing critical consciousness in the child participants by adopting problem-posing learning opportunities and encouraging active enquiry and curiosity-led participation in group action.
The originating concept for this activity is based on the premise that children should actively participate in the construction of their world as social agents, that it is essential to endorse children with dialogue efforts directed at community targets, enhancing control and beliefs in ability to change people’s own lives. The focus is on empowering them to become citizens of the world, who critically reflect on their world to make it a better place, taking care of the environment and their community together, ensuring that the hope of a better future is achievable.
By virtue of these considerations, the children of the various schools created, in class, an ‘active children’s parliament’, committing themselves to originating a set of rules that can make people understand the advantages as well as the dangers that Artificial Intelligence poses to our society. They drafted an Ethical Charter comprising three sections under the headings ‘knowing’, which invites children to develop rules having regard towhat AI can do, etc.; ‘understanding’, which focuses on ‘what things are good’ and ‘what things are bad’ about AI, etc.; ‘doing’, which considers how AI should be used in a positive and useful way, believing in our own dreams, so that we do what we are supposed to do and don’t let AI do it for us, etc.
