What we still don’t know about AI and children’s relationships

Recently, one of the authors observed two young children, ages 5 and 6, playing with an AI-enabled stuffed toy.

最近，一位作者观察到两个年龄分别为 5 岁和 6 岁的孩子正在玩人工智能毛绒玩具。

The children named it “Gremmy,” tied a bow around one ear, tucked it carefully into a doll bed beside stuffed animals, and returned to it throughout the day.

孩子们给它取名为“格莱米”，在一只耳朵上系了一个蝴蝶结，小心地将它塞进玩具床上，旁边是毛绒动物，然后一整天都回到它身边。

They spoke to it, laughed with it, cared for it, and, days later, one child casually mentioned something Gremmy had taught her.

他们和它说话，和它一起笑，照顾它，几天后，一个孩子漫不经心地提到了格雷米教她的一些东西。

There were also moments that felt more unsettling.

也有一些时刻让人感到更加不安。

At one point, the toy ran out of battery, and it instructed the child to find a charger.

有一次，玩具的电池没电了，它指示孩子找到充电器。

The 5-year-old began searching the house—there was no suggestion to involve a parent or caregiver to help him.

这位 5 岁的孩子开始搜查房子——没有建议让父母或看护者来帮助他。

This is only one family’s experience, but it reflects a broader shift: Young children are already encountering AI in ways that can shape play, trust, and relationships, while parents, caregivers, and the early childhood workforce are asking questions that the evidence is only beginning to answer.

这只是一个家庭的经历，但它反映了更广泛的转变：幼儿已经以可以塑造游戏、信任和关系的方式接触人工智能，而父母、看护者和幼儿劳动力则提出了证据刚刚开始回答的问题。

Children have been forming relationships with stuffed animals , toys, and one-sided, or parasocial, relationships with media characters for decades.

几十年来，孩子们一直在与毛绒动物、玩具以及与媒体人物建立单方面的或准社会的关系。

Children’s television characters have long spoken directly to young viewers and created the impression of social interaction.

长期以来，儿童电视角色一直直接与年轻观众交谈，并营造出社交互动的印象。

But conversational AI introduces something different: synchronous responsiveness.

但对话式人工智能引入了一些不同的东西：同步响应。

AI-enabled toys like “Gremmy” can respond to what a particular child says, remember previous interactions, praise, comfort, and appear to reciprocate.

像“Gremmy”这样的人工智能玩具可以对特定孩子所说的话做出反应，记住以前的互动、表扬、安慰，并且看起来会做出回应。

The interaction is no longer one-sided.

互动不再是单方面的。

That shift raises new questions about how young children understand and experience relationships with technologies that can increasingly mimic aspects of human interaction.

这种转变提出了新的问题，即幼儿如何理解和体验与越来越多地模仿人类互动的技术的关系。

Developmental science has long shown that responsive relationships with parents, caregivers, teachers, and peers shape children’s language, emotional regulation, curiosity, and social understanding.

发展科学早已表明，与父母、照顾者、老师和同龄人之间的反应性关系塑造了儿童的语言、情绪调节、好奇心和社会理解。

Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child calls this dynamic “serve and return” —the back-and-forth exchange between a child and a caregiver that helps shape developing brain architecture.

哈佛大学儿童发育中心将这种动态称为“服务与回报”——儿童和照顾者之间的来回交流，有助于塑造发育中的大脑结构。

It is a critical engine of development.

它是发展的关键引擎。

But responsiveness alone may not capture what makes human relationships developmentally important.

但仅凭反应性可能无法体现人际关系对发展的重要性。

In “ Human Raised ,” Dana Suskind argues that the messy, sometimes imperfect nature of human interaction is itself developmentally valuable.

达纳·苏斯金德 (Dana Suskind) 在《人类成长》一书中指出，人类互动的混乱、有时不完美的本质本身就具有发展价值。

Children experience friction in human relationships—disagreement, frustration, misunderstanding—and must navigate another person’s needs and emotions, learning how relationships can be repaired.

孩子们在人际关系中会经历摩擦——分歧、沮丧、误解——并且必须引导他人的需求和情绪，学习如何修复关系。

These experiences can help build capacities such as empathy, perspective-taking, and resilience.

这些经历可以帮助培养同理心、换位思考和适应能力等能力。

AI interactions are different.

人工智能交互是不同的。

A conversational agent may listen, remember, praise, disagree, or adapt to a child, but it does not bring the independent needs, emotions, and vulnerabilities of another human to the interaction.

对话代理可以倾听、记忆、表扬、不同意或适应孩子，但它不会将另一个人的独立需求、情感和脆弱性带入互动中。

It does not need to be comforted, negotiate its own needs, or experience hurt feelings.

它不需要被安慰，不需要协商自己的需求，也不需要经历受伤的感觉。

If AI increasingly becomes part of children’s relational environments, understanding what children experience and learn through different forms of interaction—and whether their developmental effects differ—becomes a child development question, not simply a technology question.

如果人工智能越来越多地成为儿童关系环境的一部分，那么了解儿童通过不同形式的互动所经历和学习的内容，以及他们的发展影响是否不同，就成为一个儿童发展问题，而不仅仅是一个技术问题。

The question, then, is what happens when AI can simulate features of human relationships without actually being human.

那么问题是，当人工智能能够模拟人类关系的特征而不是真正的人类时，会发生什么。

Isabelle Hau frames the stakes directly, saying that the defining challenge of the AI era is whether we intentionally cultivate the relational intelligence children need to ensure AI strengthens rather than weakens real human connection.

Isabelle Hau 直接指出了利害关系，她表示人工智能时代的决定性挑战是我们是否有意培养孩子们所需的关系智能，以确保人工智能加强而不是削弱真正的人与人之间的联系。

What we still lack is empirical evidence about how children interpret these interactions with AI, how they compare them with human relationships, and how they shape children’s understanding of trust, friendship, authority, and care.

我们仍然缺乏关于儿童如何解释这些与人工智能的互动、如何将其与人际关系进行比较以及如何塑造儿童对信任、友谊、权威和关怀的理解的经验证据。

Most discussions about children and AI begin with safety.

大多数关于儿童和人工智能的讨论都是从安全开始的。

They focus on privacy, governance, bias, misinformation, and online protection.

他们关注隐私、治理、偏见、错误信息和在线保护。

These issues matter enormously and remain indispensable.

这些问题非常重要，而且仍然不可或缺。

But if AI increasingly occupies children’s relational worlds, another question demands attention: What happens when children begin forming relationships with AI?

但如果人工智能越来越多地占据儿童的关系世界，另一个问题需要引起注意：当儿童开始与人工智能建立关系时会发生什么？

As part of its ongoing work to develop actionable recommendations for developers, designers, and makers of AI products used by young children, the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital reviewed more than 30 publicly available documents—policy briefs, white papers, and reports published between 2020 and 2025—representing perspectives from leading global organizations on children and AI.

波士顿儿童医院数字健康实验室正在为幼儿使用的人工智能产品的开发者、设计者和制造商制定可行的建议，作为其持续工作的一部分，波士顿儿童医院的数字健康实验室审查了 30 多份公开文件，包括 2020 年至 2025 年间发布的政策简报、白皮书和报告，代表了全球领先组织对儿童和人工智能的观点。

The document review found that only 5.26% of the current published research explored AI’s impacts on relationship formation and attachment.

文件审查发现，目前已发表的研究中只有 5.26% 探讨了人工智能对关系形成和依恋的影响。

In other words, despite decades of child development research demonstrating that relationships are among the strongest drivers of children’s learning and well-being, they remain one of the least examined dimensions across youth-related AI policy and research.

换句话说，尽管数十年的儿童发展研究表明，人际关系是儿童学习和福祉最强大的驱动因素之一，但它们仍然是与青年相关的人工智能政策和研究中最少审查的维度之一。

The gap is not abstract.

这种差距并不是抽象的。

Over the past six months, Brookings’ Generation AI Starts Early initiative has heard increasingly nuanced questions from parents, caregivers, educators, policymakers, and industry professionals.

在过去的六个月里，布鲁金斯学会的“人工智能一代早日启动”计划听到了来自家长、看护者、教育工作者、政策制定者和行业专业人士越来越细致的问题。

People ask about AI toys like “Gremmy,” whether immersive AI-generated media may displace child-to-child interaction, whether children should talk to conversational AI, when AI literacy should begin, and how to encourage innovation while protecting healthy development.

人们询问像“Gremmy”这样的人工智能玩具，沉浸式人工智能生成的媒体是否会取代儿童之间的互动，孩子是否应该与对话式人工智能交谈，人工智能素养应该何时开始，以及如何在保护健康发展的同时鼓励创新。

Today, we attempt to answer many of these questions by drawing on decades of developmental science.

今天，我们试图利用数十年的发展科学来回答其中的许多问题。

But conversational AI introduces novel complications and questions that existing evidence is only beginning to address—and children are not waiting for science to catch up.

但对话式人工智能带来了新的复杂性和问题，而现有证据才刚刚开始解决这些问题，而孩子们并没有等待科学赶上来。

They are already growing up with AI in their homes, classrooms, and childcare settings.

他们已经在家里、教室和托儿所中伴随着人工智能长大。

The next “Gremmy” is already in their crib.

下一个“Gremmy”已经在他们的婴儿床上了。

The research needed to answer these questions is not out of reach.

回答这些问题所需的研究并非遥不可及。

Recent experimental work—including studies examining how young children seek information from and trust AI versus human sources—shows researchers can study this now.

最近的实验工作——包括研究幼儿如何从人工智能和人类来源中寻求信息和信任人工智能——表明研究人员现在可以研究这个问题。

What’s missing is sustained investment at the scale this moment demands and what can bring together and benefit caregivers, policymakers, and industry alike.

缺少的是目前所需规模的持续投资，以及能够聚集护理人员、政策制定者和行业并使其受益的投资。

That research agenda should examine some of these questions and topics:

该研究议程应检查其中一些问题和主题：

No single actor can close this gap alone.

没有任何一个演员可以单独缩小这一差距。

Actors in the early childhood ecosystem—think tanks, researchers, industry, nonprofits and funders can coordinate around a research agenda.

幼儿生态系统中的参与者——智囊团、研究人员、行业、非营利组织和资助者可以围绕研究议程进行协调。

In partnership, they can lead, translate, and disseminate much needed research to support industry, policymakers, and parents/caregivers.

通过合作，他们可以领导、翻译和传播急需的研究成果，以支持行业、政策制定者和家长/照顾者。

Funders can accelerate this work by investing in observational, qualitative, and longitudinal research.

资助者可以通过投资观察性、定性和纵向研究来加速这项工作。

Industry can build this research into product design—including cues that redirect children to a trusted adult at moments like a dead battery, rather than inviting the child to solve it alone.

行业可以将这项研究融入到产品设计中，包括在电池没电等时刻将孩子们引导到值得信赖的成年人的提示，而不是邀请孩子独自解决问题。

Policymakers can ground AI-related child-focused policies in this research.

政策制定者可以在这项研究中制定与人工智能相关的以儿童为中心的政策。

If AI is becoming part of the relationships that shape early childhood, understanding those relationships is no longer a niche research question.

如果人工智能正在成为塑造幼儿期的关系的一部分，那么理解这些关系就不再是一个小众研究问题。

It is one of the defining child development questions of the AI era.

这是人工智能时代决定性的儿童发展问题之一。

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布鲁金斯学会致力于质量、独立性和影响力。

We are supported by a diverse array of funders .

我们得到了众多资助者的支持。

In line with our values and policies , each Brookings publication represents the sole views of its author(s).

根据我们的价值观和政策，布鲁金斯学会的每份出版物均代表其作者的唯一观点。