UNICEF Guidance on AI for Children: Application to the Design of a Social Robot For and With Autistic Children
This work addresses the design of AI systems for vulnerable populations like autistic children, but it is incremental as it applies existing guidelines without introducing new methods.
The researchers embedded a social robot in a special education school for three weeks to support the well-being of autistic children, demonstrating the application of UNICEF AI guidelines in a real-world setting.
For a period of three weeks in June 2021, we embedded a social robot (Softbank Pepper) in a Special Educational Needs (SEN) school, with a focus on supporting the well-being of autistic children. Our methodology to design and embed the robot among this vulnerable population follows a comprehensive participatory approach. We used the research project as a test-bed to demonstrate in a complex real-world environment the importance and suitability of the nine UNICEF guidelines on AI for Children. The UNICEF guidelines on AI for Children closely align with several of the UN goals for sustainable development, and, as such, we report here our contribution to these goals.