Mobicip interview series for Safer Internet Day 2026 · Part 2 of 8
The Hidden Cost of AI for Kids
Watch the recording on YouTube
Summary
Anitha explains that Mobicip is especially concerned about children losing creativity, empathy, critical thinking and autonomy, and asks how AI used without safeguards could harm them.
I talk about what we’re already seeing with heavy chatbot use, which is weaker critical thinking and weaker writing. My biggest worry is that children become unaccustomed to working through complex questions without an AI aid, and stop trusting themselves to reach a conclusion.
Key points
- AI becomes a crutch when a child’s first move is to consult it, because its answers sound more intelligent than the child’s own.
- Older children formed their basic thinking skills before AI arrived. Younger children who grow up with it from the point they start doing that kind of thinking and writing may never develop those skills.
Speakers
- John Zoltner Guest
- Anitha Swaminathan Interviewer, Mobicip
Transcript
The wording is as spoken, with punctuation and obvious errors corrected. See “How this transcript was made” above.
[00:00:00]Anitha Swaminathan: At Mobicip we are especially concerned, mostly concerned about the potential losses in a child’s creativity, empathy, critical thinking and autonomy. And AI is often presented as a world of opportunities and benefits. So when this is used without safeguards and protection, how could it harmfully impact the children?
[00:00:38]John Zoltner: Well, we’re already seeing that heavy use of AI technologies like chatbots by children is leading to diminished critical thinking and, for instance, diminished writing ability. [Passage omitted.] So we know that the biggest danger for me is that children become unaccustomed to thinking in complex ways or analyzing information or situations without the use of an AI aid. And so then they sort of give up their control or their ability to understand and analyze and make conclusions about something without using AI as part of that. So then what happens is they don’t feel comfortable making decisions without consulting AI first. And they don’t feel like they’re able to formulate an answer that sufficiently makes sense in response to the question without using AI because it sounds to them that AI responds in such a more intelligent way than they do. So AI becomes a one of the crutch. And, of course, the problem is then older children who have grown up without AI have formed many of the basic skills necessary to do that more complex thinking. But younger children who are growing up with access to AI from the point at which they start to have to do that kind of thinking and for school or for other reasons never develop the ability to do that kind of complex thinking or writing.