Are you My Best Friend? Exploring Children’s Relationships with AI Companions

Children’s relationships are essential for learning. Through interactions with parents, peers, and educators, children learn how to navigate the social world by building and fostering relationships. Children also take an active role in their social development, sometimes creating imaginary friends that they interact and play with. With the rise of AI powered smart toys and companion apps, questions arise as to the role these companion bots may play in children’s social development. Will these synthetic relationships enhance children’s emotional well-being and social skills? Is it also possible that these relationships could disrupt children’s developing social networks? In this interactive presentation, Dr. Naomi Aguiar will explore children’s real friends, imaginary friends, and how these relationships can help us make sense of children’s budding relationships with AI chatbots. She’ll discuss the psychological mechanisms that drive children to form bonds with AI companions, as well as the design features that encourage these bonds. Dr. Aguiar will also discuss the benefits and risk AI companion bots pose to children’s social development and she’ll suggest harm mitigation strategies.