Values form in childhood, and AI is now part of it

Developmental psychology holds that fundamental values, cultural belonging and basic thinking patterns form mostly between the ages of eight and eighteen. What feels normal, progressive or desirable in that phase shapes later political and social judgement, even when explicit opinions change in adulthood.

A child who interacts daily with an AI that presents certain cultures, languages and ways of life as the default develops a matching frame of reference. That does not mean the child is being manipulated. It means that what feels self-evident every day shapes how they see the world, as television, books and the family home did for earlier generations. The difference is scale: no book or teacher has ever reached every child daily and individually at the same time.

Early studies from Scandinavia, Germany and the United States point in the same direction: children with intensive, uncritical AI use show less willingness to tackle open tasks alone, lower tolerance for problems without an immediate solution, and a tendency to question information less. The research is young, but consistent enough to act now.

The ten-year-old of today will vote, decide and work in twenty years. That is why AI literacy is not an optional extra. It is a core task of education, like reading, arithmetic and critical thinking.

The same skills that protect children also protect adults when their jobs change. Our programmes teach both generations to use AI with judgement.