Part V: Keeping Kids Safe

第五部分：确保孩子安全

AI as “Guardian Angel”

AI 作为“守护天使”

The internet is a useful but scary place, even for adults. In the late 1990s, we were all blown away by the power to search across billions of pages for answers, products, and services. However, as page views began to drive ad revenue, most websites became less about offering visitors what they actually wanted and more about persuading them to click on ads.

互联网是一个有用但令人恐惧的地方，即使对于成年人也是如此。在 20 世纪 90 年代末，我们都为能够在数十亿个页面中搜索答案、产品和服务的能力感到震惊。然而，随着页面浏览量开始驱动广告收入，大多数网站变得不再是提供访客真正想要的内容，而是更多地说服他们点击广告。

This includes search. Roughly the first half-dozen links you see are actually ads. Then the real search results below them are from companies that are good at optimizing their sites for search engines, and they are not always the most credible ones. Because of this, you are likely to find just as much misinformation as information when you search for therapies that might help a loved one with their illness or try to more deeply understand an issue in the news.

这包括搜索。大约你看到的前六个链接实际上都是广告。然后下面的真实搜索结果来自那些擅长为搜索引擎优化其网站的公司，它们并不总是最可信的。因此，当你搜索可能帮助亲人治疗疾病的疗法或试图更深入地了解新闻中的一个问题时，你可能会找到与信息量同样多的虚假信息。

Compounding matters is that the internet you see is not the same one that others see. The search results, ads, and social media feeds personalize results for what you are most likely to engage with. All too often, this is content that reinforces your existing point of view or triggers an emotional response in you in some way, with the end result being that you are more stressed and potentially polarized in your thinking.

更复杂的是，你看到的互联网与其他人看到的并不相同。搜索结果、广告和社交媒体信息流会根据你最可能参与的内容进行个性化。这通常是那些强化你现有观点或以某种方式触发你情绪反应的内容，最终结果是你变得更加紧张，并可能在思维上变得两极化。

The stakes are even higher for children. They are likely to be less equipped than adults to discern credible from not-so-credible sources, which is an important skill that even most adults struggle with. Also, kids don’t have the ability to regulate their behavior as much as adults do, so addictive social media feeds can completely command a child’s attention for hours on end. This adds stress, agitation, and detachment from the real world. Given that children’s brains are still developing, it also causes potential harm to their mental development. And that is before we even consider how easy it is for children to stumble into extremely disturbing violent or pornographic content online.

对于孩子来说，情况更为严重。他们可能不像成年人那样具备辨别可信和不可信来源的能力，这是一项即使大多数成年人也难以掌握的重要技能。此外，孩子们没有像成年人那样调节自己行为的能力，所以上瘾的社交媒体信息流可以完全吸引孩子几个小时的注意力。这增加了压力、烦躁感和与现实世界的脱离。考虑到儿童的大脑仍在发育，这也会对他们的心理发展造成潜在的伤害。这还是在我们还没有考虑到孩子们在网上偶然发现极其令人不安的暴力或色情内容是多么容易的情况下。

Because of this, we attempt to put some guardrails on the internet for children, with varying degrees of success. Most schools, and many families, have software in place that will limit what sites a young person can access. Unfortunately, this is a blunt instrument. These filters tend to become frustrating for students because they can block things that are genuinely valuable. They can also let in things that aren’t appropriate. A site like YouTube could have some valuable educational content or even enriching entertainment, but it also has a lot of junk that is unhealthy for young people. Even a respected news outlet might have content about wars or sex crimes that would be inappropriate for children, especially without someone—or something—there to help give context.

因此，我们试图在互联网为儿童设立一些护栏，成功程度不一。大多数学校和许多家庭都有软件可以限制年轻人可以访问的网站。不幸的是，这是一个笨拙的工具。这些过滤器往往让学生感到沮丧，因为它们会阻止一些真正有价值的东西。它们也可能让一些不适合的内容通过。像 YouTube 这样的网站可能有一些有价值的教育内容或甚至是丰富的娱乐内容，但它也有很多对年轻人不健康的垃圾内容。即使是一个受尊敬的新闻媒体也可能有关于战争或性犯罪的内容，这对儿童来说是不合适的，尤其是在没有人——或者说没有东西——在那里提供背景的情况下。

Now imagine if an AI tutor could “sit” next to students as they navigate the internet in general. Imagine if it were a browser plug-in. The same way that AI might help students better engage with online exercises or videos, it might also help them when they are browsing Wikipedia, YouTube, or the New York Times website. It might reformulate the news article they are reading closer to their grade level, potentially leaving out age-inappropriate details. While students are researching a paper, it might help zero in on material that actually addresses the issue they are investigating. It might also Socratically help a student engage with what they are reading or even provide context that the student needs to better understand the content.

现在想象一下，如果一个 AI 导师可以在学生浏览互联网时“坐”在他们旁边。想象一下，如果它是一个浏览器插件。AI 如何帮助学生更好地参与在线练习或视频，它也可以在他们浏览维基百科、YouTube 或纽约时报网站时帮助他们。它可能会重新措辞他们正在阅读的新闻文章，使其更接近他们的年级水平，可能会省略年龄不适宜的细节。当学生在研究一篇论文时，它可能会帮助他们聚焦于真正解决他们正在研究的问题的材料。它也可能以苏格拉底的方式帮助学生与他们正在阅读的内容互动，甚至提供学生需要的背景以更好地理解内容。

Having this functionality can also provide a valuable service for parents and teachers. As a parent, I want to maximize my children’s constructive screen time (doing academic exercises online, coding, creating digital art, editing video, or writing a paper) and minimize their not-so-constructive time (stalking their friends on social media or watching other people play Roblox on YouTube). Even more, I want to ensure that the internet won’t expose my kids to shady content. Ideally, I’d also get a report on what my children have been up to online. This would have seemed like a tall order only a few years ago, but it is very doable by the latest generation of AI.

拥有这种功能还可以为家长和老师提供有价值的服务。作为一名家长，我希望最大限度地增加孩子的建设性屏幕时间（在线进行学业练习、编码、创建数字艺术、编辑视频或写论文），并最小化他们的不太建设性时间（在社交媒体上跟踪朋友或在 YouTube 上观看别人玩 Roblox）。更重要的是，我希望确保互联网不会向我的孩子暴露阴暗内容。理想情况下，我还希望能获得一份关于我的孩子在网上做了什么的报告。几年前，这听起来像是一个难以实现的要求，但通过最新一代的 AI，这是非常可行的。

It is akin to having a real, ethical, responsible tutor sitting next to your child when they do anything on the internet, reviewing sites in advance. Not only would this type of AI oversight make browsing the internet safer and more productive, it could provide incentives that parents and teachers have wanted to put in place for a long time. Since the beginning of Khan Academy, parents have asked me whether we might develop a way to allocate time for YouTube or Minecraft based on how much academic work their kids have completed on our site. This is now possible, and we are building it. The AI will be able to unlock time on less-productive sites based on the amount of productive time students have put in.

这就像在孩子在网上做任何事情时，有一个真实的、道德的、负责任的导师坐在他们旁边，提前审查网站。这种 AI 监督不仅会使浏览互联网变得更安全、更高效，它还可以提供家长和老师长久以来希望实施的激励措施。自可汗学院成立以来，家长们一直问我是否可以开发一种方法，根据孩子在我们网站上完成的学业工作量分配 YouTube 或 Minecraft 的时间。这现在是可能的，我们正在建设它。AI 将能够根据学生投入的建设性时间量解锁不那么高效的网站时间。

Everything I’ve written regarding kids is arguably useful for adults as well. It would feel like browsing the internet with a thoughtful, intelligent friend who’s willing to help me get to the information that I want faster. It would also protect me from unhealthy ads or information.

我写的关于孩子的一切对成年人来说也同样有用。这就像和一个深思熟虑、聪明的朋友一起浏览互联网，他愿意帮助我更快地找到我想要的信息。它还会保护我免受不健康的广告或信息的侵害。

But as a browsing assistant, it could do much more than just help me find information faster. It could make me mindful of where I am spending my time:

但作为一个浏览助手，它不仅仅是帮助我更快地找到信息。它可以让我注意到我在哪里花费了时间：

KHANMIGO: I thought we were working on researching medication for your mother. But you’ve spent the last ten minutes watching Bollywood dance clips. Maybe we should get back on task?

KHANMIGO: 我以为我们在为你母亲研究药物。但是你过去十分钟一直在看宝莱坞舞蹈视频。也许我们应该回到任务上？

What if it could also keep us mindful of our mental health?

它还能让我们注意到我们的心理健康吗？

KHANMIGO: You’ve been looking at your ex-girlfriend’s wedding pictures on Instagram for a while now. How is this making you feel? Maybe we can talk a bit about it.

KHANMIGO: 你已经在 Instagram 上看了前女友的婚礼照片一段时间了。这让你感觉如何？也许我们可以谈谈这个。

Or our physical health too:

或者，我们的身体健康呢？

KHANMIGO: We’ve been doing research for over two hours; is it a good time to do a little stretching?

KHANMIGO: 我们已经研究了两个多小时；现在是做点伸展运动的好时机吗？

Most of us spend several hours a day on the internet, which puts unimaginable information and services at our fingertips. It also exposes us, however, to content and algorithms that can negatively impact our mental and physical health. With the advent of generative AI guides who sit alongside us and filter the internet according to our needs—not those of corporations—we can better capture its benefits while mitigating the downsides.

我们大多数人每天花几个小时在互联网上，这让我们触手可及到不可想象的信息和服务。然而，它也使我们暴露在可能对我们的心理和身体健康产生负面影响的内容和算法中。随着生成式 AI 向导的出现，他们会陪伴我们，并根据我们的需求（而不是公司的需求）过滤互联网，我们可以更好地获取互联网的好处，同时减轻其负面影响。

AI has the potential to be our guardian angel online.

AI 有可能成为我们在线的“守护天使”。

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