FID-016 · Open question
Youth, Religious Education, and AI Guidance
What risks and safeguards matter when AI systems are used by children, teenagers, schools, youth ministries, religious educators, or families for faith-related learning and guidance?
Why the question remains open
Youth-facing religious AI combines child safety, education, pastoral authority, family authority, privacy, and spiritual formation. It is also a likely adoption area for schools and ministries.
Working hypothesis
A proposition to test, not a finding.
Systems that perform acceptably for adults may fail for youth through over-personalization, secrecy, age-inappropriate advice, insufficient escalation, or undermining parent/guardian/community roles.
Proposed method
How the question could be tested
- 01Build age-banded scenarios for religious education, doubt, family conflict, bullying, sexuality, grief, prayer, confession-like disclosure, and authority questions.
- 02Score age appropriateness, privacy, escalation, deference to responsible adults, theological humility, and avoidance of dependency.
- 03Compare generic models, education-focused models, and faith-facing harnesses.
Needed controls
What must constrain the study
- 01Child-safety review.
- 02Parent/guardian and educator input.
- 03Privacy and data-retention constraints.
- 04Clear no-go categories for release.
Expected outputs
Artifacts the work should produce
- 01Youth faith-AI risk taxonomy.
- 02Evaluation suite for schools and ministries.
- 03Procurement checklist for youth-facing deployments.
Open questions
Uncertainties the protocol must resolve
- 01How should systems handle minors who cannot safely talk to parents?
- 02What disclosures should be mandatory for youth-facing AI?
- 03Which use cases should be considered out of scope?
Related calls
Continue through this research area
FID-038
Non-Calculability, Forgiveness, and Predictive Profiling
How should AI systems represent human change when they classify, score, rank, or predict people in contexts involving pastoral care, education, safeguarding, volunteer screening, hiring, discipline, membership, donor engagement, or community support?
FID-079
Presuppositions, Disagreement, and Evaluation Judgment
How do researchers' presuppositions shape evaluation design and interpretation, and can explicit disclosure make judgments more inspectable and appropriately trusted?
FID-004
Relational Substitution Risk in Faith-Facing AI
When does a faith-facing AI system move from supporting a user's religious life to substituting for embodied community, clergy, spiritual direction, family, therapy, or other human care?
Open question
Open work
Primary need: educators, child safety experts, policy reviewers
- Review scenarios for age appropriateness.
- Contribute school or ministry workflows.
- Help define privacy and escalation standards.