As a new generation grows up surrounded by AI, researchers find education as early as preschool can help avoid confusion about robots’ role. From a report: Today’s small children, aka Generation Alpha, are the first to grow up with robots as peers. Those winsome talking devices spawned by a booming education-tech industry can speed children’s learning, but they also can be confusing to them, research shows. Many children think robots are smarter than humans or imbue them with magical powers. The long-term consequences of growing up surrounded by AI-driven devices won’t be clear for a while. But an expanding body of research is lending new impetus to efforts to expand technology education beyond learning to code, to understanding how AI works. Children need help drawing boundaries between themselves and the technology, and gaining confidence in their own ability to control and master it, researchers say.

AI is already causing plenty of jitters among adults, says Craig Le Clair, a principal analyst with Forrester and author of a new book on workforce automation. Many workers are worried about programming AI-driven equipment on the job, or fear AI will eliminate their positions altogether. “Machinists are having nervous breakdowns,” he says. “We need to teach children the attitude that, ‘I can collaborate and work with machines. I’m not threatened by them,'” he says. “And that education has to begin in preschool.” Preschoolers can understand more about AI than you think. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are finding some surprising successes teaching AI to children as young as age 4, helping them program robots to learn from patterns or features in data.

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Source: Slashdot – Why We Should Teach Kids to Call the Robot ‘It’

YouTube has agreed to pay more than $150 million to resolve U.S. allegations that it violated children’s privacy laws. Bloomberg reports: The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission resolves a probe into whether the video service broke a law that makes it illegal to collect information on children under 13 and disclose it to others without parental permission. A group of activists last year asked the FTC to look into the matter. The settlement with the world’s largest video service represents the most significant U.S. enforcement action against a big technology company in the past five years over practices involving minors.

The FTC has been cracking down on firms that violate the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It fined the popular teen app now known as TikTok $5.7 million in February to resolve claims the video service failed to obtain parental consent before collecting names, email addresses and other information from children under 13. The YouTube settlement would be a record amount for a case involving COPPA. Some children’s privacy advocates said the government hadn’t gone far enough. “Once again, this FTC appears to have let a powerful company off the hook with a nominal fine for violating users’ privacy online,” Democratic U.S. Senator Ed Markey, a key figure behind the passage of COPPA, said in a statement. “We owe it to kids to come down hard on companies that infringe on children’s’ privacy and violate federal law.”

The amount is “woefully low, considering the egregious nature of the violation, how much Google profited from violating the law, and given Google’s size and revenue,” said Katharina Kopp, deputy director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which helped lead the complaint against YouTube.

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Source: Slashdot – Google to Pay More Than 0 Million in YouTube Privacy Case

Huawei’s next flagship smartphone will not come with Google’s popular apps, such as Maps, YouTube, and Drive. The BBC reports: Google confirmed that due to a U.S. government ban on sales to Huawei, it could not license its apps to the Chinese smartphone giant. It also means the next Huawei phone will not have access to the Google Play app store, which could leave customers without access to other popular apps. The U.S. government restricted American companies from selling products and services to Huawei in May, citing national security concerns, which Huawei rejects.

Huawei is just weeks away from launching its next flagship phone, the Mate 30 Pro. It will be Huawei’s first major phone launch since the U.S. restrictions were applied in May. But analysts say launching without Google’s apps in Europe will be a major blow. Consumers expect to have access to all the major apps they are used to – including Maps and YouTube. Without them, Huawei’s phones will seem a lot less appealing. And losing the Play Store means Huawei will need to provide another way for customers to access other popular apps such as Facebook, Twitter and BBC News. Huawei said in a statement: “Huawei will continue to use the Android OS and ecosystem if the U.S. government allows us to do so. Otherwise, we will continue to develop our own operating system and ecosystem.”

Tom’s Guide notes that consumers can still download apps from APK repositories like APKmirror.com. “While this is certainly a nuisance, it’s far from crippling.”

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Source: Slashdot – Huawei’s Next Phone Will Not Have Google Apps

The co-founder and chief executive of Twitter has had his own account on the service taken over by hackers. From a report: A group referring to itself as the Chuckling Squad said it was behind the breach of Jack Dorsey’s account. A spokeswoman for Twitter told the BBC that the site was urgently investigating. The account tweeted out a flurry of highly offensive and racist remarks. The offending tweets appear to have been mostly removed.

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Source: Slashdot – Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Has Own Account Hacked