Terminator

• The global panic around AI’s co-option of children’s play and cultures has manifested unpredictably.
• Earlier this year, a Swiss comedian created a film trailer for an imagined remake of the beloved children’s story Heidi using the AI tool Gen-2.
• This isn’t the first time AI has been used to re-imagine representations of childhood through the creation of cultural artefacts.

M3GAN and AI dolls

• One of the most successful horror films of 2022, M3GAN, depicts the disturbing results of a grieving girl’s friendship with an ultra-lifelike AI-powered doll.
• A clip of M3GAN dancing (her face expressionless as her body emulates moves from youth dance trends on social media) went viral to an extent the director called “unbelievable.” M3GAN strikes a cultural chord, embodying our discomfort with how AI co-opts and twists children’s culture.
• The Artifice Girl (2022) depicts an AI-generated nine-year-old designed to lure predators online, highlighting debates about AI ethics.
• When AI tools pervert children’s culture, they spark our deepest fears about AI’s inhuman modes of intelligence.

The long history of childhood techno-phobia

• Cultural anxieties about AI’s infiltration of children’s culture continue a long history of pop cultural preoccupations with dangerous interactions between children and technologies that cannot be trusted.
• With Poltergeist (1982), the world was enthralled by five-year-old Carol Anne’s haunting statement, “They’re here…” She was listening to poltergeists through the family’s television.
• This resonated with parents concerned with children’s screen time, as well as video games, Dungeons and Dragons and Satanic ritual abuse.

AI is a lightning rod for fear

• In May, AI companies made headlines when they linked AI to potential human extinction.
• While experts dismissed these claims, perceptions of AI as a significant threat echoes the horrors of AI depicted in film.
• While we shouldn’t be swept up by moral panics, children’s use and understanding of AI should be addressed.
• UNICEF is embedding children’s rights into global AI policy and the World Economic Forum has released an AI for children toolkit.

• With the emergence of advanced AI systems, the way social science research is conducted could change.
• But our article also raises questions about how AI can be harnessed for social science research while also ensuring transparency and replicability.

Using AI in research

• There are a number of possible ways AI could be used in social science research.
• AI could act as a research assistant by processing enormous volumes of human conversations from the internet and offering insights into societal trends and human behaviour.
• Another possibility could be using AI as actors in social experiments.

Obstacles lie ahead

• While the potential for a fundamental shift in social science research is profound, so are the obstacles that lie ahead.
• Despite the human-like appearance of responses from models such as ChatGPT, these large language models are not human stand-ins.
• Large language models are trained on a vast number of cultural products including books, social media texts and YouTube replies.

Bias is a major concern

• A primary concern lies in the quality and breadth of the data that trains AI models, including large language models.
• This bias reproduction is a major concern because it could amplify the very disparities social scientists strive to uncover in their research.

AI literacy is key

• AI systems sometimes generate hallucinated facts — statements that sound credible, but are incorrect.
• Since generative AI lacks awareness, it presents these hallucinations without any indication of uncertainty.
• The importance of AI literacy can’t be overstressed.

Striking a balance

• Our focus should not be on preventing a far-off Skynet scenario, but on the concrete issues that AI brings to the table now.
• By striking a balance between leveraging AI’s potential and managing its tangible challenges, we can guide the integration of AI into social sciences responsibly, ethically, and to the benefit of all.

• New Contracts – Inspired signed the following new contracts in the first quarter 2023:
  Mozzarbet for Virtuals Plug and Play in three new African territories.
• The full rollout of 6,500 "Vantage" terminals to these two major customers is expected to be complete by the end of 2023.
• Currency Movement represents the difference between the results in our reporting currency (USD) and the results on a functional currency at constant rate basis.
• ET / 2:00 p.m. UK on Wednesday, May 10, 2023 to discuss the financial results and general business trends.

• These visual effects are commonly utilised in TV shows, movies, video games, advertisements, and other forms of media.
• They are essential to the making of films because they make it possible to create appealing effects.
• There is an increasing need for creativity in visual effects for novel experiences like augmented reality (AR).
• The need for high-definition (HD) VFX experiences by consumers will saturate the VFX market in the upcoming years with opportunities.