ExTra CTI: Explainable and Transparent Child-Technology Interaction

When the technology encompasses some form of intelligence or agency in the form of robots, virtual agents or artificial intelligence, understanding the reasoning behind their actions and decisions becomes an integral part of the interaction. This challenge extends beyond mere interaction to ensure these technological entities engage with children in an understandable and transparent manner. Given the current emergence of research in explainability and transparency within human-robot interaction, a noticeable gap emerges when the target population shifts to children. Several challenges have contributed to this gap, including the more difficult job of considering children’s unique cognitive and emotional needs or aligning the complexity of the technology and the developmental stages of young users. As we advance the field through generating more effective explanations or transparent behaviours in robots and agents, transitioning these advancements to more child-centric contexts demands a deeper understanding of how children perceive and comprehend technological behaviours. This workshop explores this gap and how we could tackle the critical role of developing technologies, e.g., robots, AI, and toys that are more transparent and express more explainable behaviours. We aim to initiate discussions on the importance of understanding children’s perception of different technologies and approaches to generate and evaluate explainability features that are tailored for child users interacting with autonomous agents and robots. Simultaneously, we address the challenges inherent in this context, including potential biases in explainability and the risks associated with deception in child-technology interaction.