Social dynamics of AI adoption in parents’ educational decisions

What is it about?

Our study shows that competitive social pressures, rather than cost–benefit analyses, can increase the diffusion of new technologies before their long-term costs are fully understood. We study this in the context of the unrestricted use of new AI tools for teenagers in education. Using experiments, we show that parental demand for these tools rises steeply as the share of other teenagers using the technology increases. At the same time, information about the potential long-term risks shifts beliefs but has little effect on short-term demand, yet increases support for school-level restrictions. Our work suggests collective policy interventions may be required to overcome these social pressures.

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Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash

Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash