Teenage use of GenAI

Adolescents utilise GenAI to write essays and reports, or create videos for social sharing. ^{Reference Munzer6} Many teens are using GenAI without telling their parents or teachers. ⁷ While 50% of children age 12–18 have used GenAI for school, only 26% of parents are aware of such use. ⁷ However, the potential consequences of over-reliance on GenAI may have an impact on critical thinking and creativity. ^{Reference Yan, Greiff, Teuber and Gasevic8} Many teens easily believe GenAI output and treat it as if they were conversing with another human due to the human-like tone, aura of confidence and pattern-matching giving the convincing appearance of understanding and responding to what was said. ^{Reference Eliot9} Many teenagers may be unaware that LLM models may produce errors and create misinformation as well as coherent but inaccurate comments, referred to as hallucinations, especially on topics where only limited data was available for training. ^{Reference Stokel-Walker and Van Noorden10}

While some children age 10–12 identify cultural, gender and racial biases in responses from GenAI, ^{Reference Shrivastava, Sharma, Chakraborty and Kinnula11} children may not be sufficiently critical of GenAI actions and responses. Children may be unaware that GenAI can make basic errors, such as ChatGPT giving an incorrect list of the states in the USA. ^{Reference Marcus12} Children and teenagers may be completely unsuspecting that GenAI can create coherent but inaccurate comments, referred to as hallucinations. GenAI may create harmful information that perpetuates historically biased stereotypes. ^{Reference Vassel, Shieh, Sugimoto and Monroe-White13} After exposure to the limitations and mistakes of GenAI, teenagers’ attitudes may shift over time from overtrusting to disillusionment. ^{Reference Solyst, Yang, Xie, Hammer, Ogan and Eslami14} Teenagers may also be unaware of the intentional misuse of GenAI, such as to create manipulative content or impersonate individuals. ^{Reference Salah, Abdelfattah and Al Halbusi15} Some teenagers fear a loss of privacy due to unauthorised use of personal data in GenAI applications. ^{Reference Yu, Sharma, Hu, Wang and Wang16}

Malicious use of GenAI LLMs

GenAl LLMs can be used to alter real images to create fake images and create videos to deceive. ^{Reference Mitra, Mohanty and Kougianos17} Fake videos together with GenAI LLM chatbots can generate audio from a text script in any language or voice. GenAI LLM technology allows very sophisticated fake products to be created, commonly called deepfakes. ^{Reference Mitra, Mohanty and Kougianos17} If GenAI LLM generated images, video, audio and text are targeted at specific individuals for the purpose of harassment, it constitutes cyberbullying. ^{Reference Ferrara18} Catfishing occurs when an online perpetrator purposefully deceives a victim into believing there is an emotional or romantic connection between them. ^{Reference Wang and Topalli19}

Use of GenAI apps for mental healthcare

The use of GenAI apps for healthcare, or wellness apps, can be risky. The GenAI app may not be able to recognise signs of mental illness. ^{Reference De Freitas, Uğuralp, Oğuz‐Uğuralp and Puntoni20} When used for mental healthcare, the patients may not be aware that the app is not a real person and does not have the emotional foundation for a caring relationship and is not capable of providing professional therapy. ^{Reference De Freitas and Cohen21} Some young people prefer human responses rather than GenAI responses for sensitive topics such as relationships and suicidal thoughts. ^{Reference Young, Jawara, Nguyen, Daly, Huh-Yoo and Razi22} Unlike the non-judgemental listening and rapport of a professional therapist, the emotional expression of the wellness app may not provide the understanding and empathy of a human therapist. ^{Reference Sezgin and McKay23} The GenAI app may provide answers that are inappropriate and worsen the mental health crises. ^{Reference De Freitas, Uğuralp, Oğuz‐Uğuralp and Puntoni20} Additionally, the emotional expression and content of a GenAI app may not carry appropriately across international cultures. ^{Reference Sezgin and McKay23} Yet many young people are using GenAI as a mental health advisor, and parents may be unaware that children are conferring with GenAI about their well-being and self-care or using it as a mental health advisor. ^{Reference Eliot9}

Limitations

The difficulties and challenges in teaching artificial intelligence concepts to youth, including high-school students, were not discussed. ^{Reference Greenwald, Leitner and Wang24} The consequences of GenAI on the educational system were not discussed. ^{Reference Yan, Greiff, Teuber and Gasevic8} The growing need and potential solutions for incorporating AI in classrooms for teenagers were omitted. ^{Reference Forsyth, Dalton, Foster, Walsh, Smilack and Yeh25,Reference Macar, Castleman, Mauchly, Jiang, Aouissi and Aouissi26} The impact of the digital divide, or unequal access to artificial intelligence technologies was omitted. Privacy issues related to GenAI storing personal data were not discussed. The lack of regulation of GenAI and the potential to create stress from technical overload when incorporating artificial intelligence in work processes were not discussed. ^{Reference Wach, Duong, Ejdys, Kazlauskaitė, Korzynski and Mazurek27} This paper discusses GenAI models in general, not the strengths or weaknesses of specific products. Cybersecurity and fraud related to GenAI were omitted, although GenAI may increase existing risks and introduce new risks. ^{Reference Bullwinkel and Kumar28} Ethical standards for the use of GenAI in psychiatry were not included. ^{Reference King, Nanda, Stoddard, Dempsey, Hergert and Shore29} The need for increased investigation of the potential harms to youth from GenAI was omitted.