Why "share everything" isn't good advice for kids (or adults)
In our AI-infused, data-scraping world, the old kindergarten maxim to "Share everything" is no longer sound advice. Kids of all ages need to learn to protect their privacy and security.
I had written an article back in February mapping preschool principles to everyday AI ethics. (No, you didn’t miss it; it’s been stuck in draft all year waiting on permissions for reuse of an excerpt from a book I hoped to use as a reference.) What I noticed then is that most “kindergarten rules” fit nicely for explaining ethical principles in simple terms. But the old advice to “share everything” jumps out as bad advice for kids nowadays. Encouraging kids to share is still great in many situations (toys, tablets, time on a swingset), but not others. Kids need to learn from a young age to be smart about what they share to protect their privacy and safety.
A recent incident reminded me that even adults can slip up on this. Anyone who spent time on Facebook in the previous decade saw many viral “quizzes” where people shared answers about their hometowns, favorite movies, foods, sports heroes, vacation spots, etc. Lately I’ve seen posts in Substack Notes about “My One-For-Life Picks” where people share the one thing they like most in a bunch of categories, then tag others to answer too.
Guess what? Publicly posting answers to these quizzes and posts can give away answers to common security questions. Yes, sharing is great, and getting to know people better is fun. But sharing everything (especially in public, where scammers can scrape it into an AI-powered hacking tool) can be risky.
📗 Sneak peek: I’ve decided to revamp that article so those reuse permissions aren’t relevant or required. I’m now working on turning it into a small illustrated book for kids and for their adults!
I hope my book will help with teaching kids of all ages what AI ethics mean in today’s world, and how to stay safer. It will combine illustrated, large-print content aimed at kids with more detailed explanations for adults, for each of 10 concepts. (Target child age range TBC, maybe 6-10 or 8-12. Target page range 30-40.)
If you’d like to be an “ARC reviewer” and receive a free advance copy of the book in return for sharing candid feedback, please let me know:
In the meantime: For very young kids (4-6), I found a new book that might interest their adults: “Privacy Please”. The author is a CMU professor with 3 kids who has researched privacy. See this article about her book.
Stay tuned for more updates on the new book, and other news about staying safe and using AI effectively!
Once or twice I answered a quiz years ago until I realized it was to gather data. I still have friends posting their answers. Eeks
Karen, I’m happy to see you thinking about this and taking action. It starts with awareness, and perhaps the new generation has a shot at protecting privacy if they are vigilant, but there will need to be a major cultural shift. Lord knows there is plenty of data out there that for decades, most people were enthusiastically sharing about their lives and their children’s lives. I always felt guilty for not posting birthday tributes and photo montages for my kids and husband, but the truth is, I never felt comfortable. But I can’t kid myself: it’s all out there, and even a LinkedIn photo is fair game.
Recently, an AI image generation startup left a massive database of over a million images and videos publicly exposed—most of them “nudified” deepfakes created without consent. There’s a good summary available: https://substack.com/@mrcomputerscience/p-181197188.
The genius of Zuck, Google, and others was normalizing sharing at scale and building a data extraction pipeline to be used at will--not just for Big Tech, but for every startup scrambling to train an AI model and for bad actors armed with increasingly easy-to-use manipulation tools.