Part 2: How AI can be used to inflict harm
As educators, we need to know and understand the risks of AI. Often this means learning new terms and specific jargon, like ‘deepfake’ and ‘chatbots’, as well as the platforms young people are using - it’s not just TikTok! We have a working document of terms and platforms available here (scroll to bottom of page). Please get in touch if you think we’re missing something!
Once we understand the potential risks, we can then begin to consider how we prevent or mitigate them. There are a number of role players that exist, which we’ll explore in an upcoming post, along with strategies to combat the risks.
Risks
In England, Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) describes the 4 C’s of online safety. We will use the 4 C’s framework to assess the risks of AI.
A quick reminder of the 4 C’s…
Content - viewed online (e.g. pornography, racism, misogyny, self-harm, suicide, misinformation, disinformation (including fake news) and conspiracy theories*)
Contact - interacting with other users online (e.g. an adult posing as a child online)
Conduct - the way people behave online (e.g. another child gamer inflicting verbal abuse, sending pornography)
Commerce - like online gambling, inappropriate advertising, phishing or financial scams
*these have been added to the 2025 iteration of KCSIE.
Content
The capability of AI to produce harmful content is alarming and will only become more life-like and difficult to decipher from what is the truth.
AI generated child sexual abuse materials and other harmful AI generated images are now widespread on the internet. Young people are viewing disturbing images, often unintentionally - for example, another person sends or shows them an indecent image. Often these images cause distress and can lead to an unrealistic, dangerous world view.
AI chatbots on social media are being employed to target young people and share divisive fake news. For example, there is growing evidence of young men and boys being targeted by bots and pushing content that promotes misogynistic views on platforms like TikTok and Discord.
We’ll continue to look at the 4 C’s next time…