A Technology Ethics Declaration for Children

A Technology Ethics Declaration for Children

– So that, before they have a language of their own, they do not meet the language of the machine

Preface

We are now living alongside tools that wield a language faster and more fluent than any human's.

And those tools are reaching our children, too.

But we must ask:

“Could this too-early encounter be robbing the child of their senses, their words, and their thoughts?”

We want children to discover their own language for themselves,

to touch the world with their own senses,

and to begin their lives with their own thinking —

and so we ask that technology keep a proper ‘distance.’

More than the progress of technology,

in the belief that the birth of a person matters more,

we begin this declaration.

Article 1. A child has the right to time for their own thinking.

Children have the right to stammer on their own, to write clumsily,

and to build a language of their own.

Technology must not become something that blocks that process.

Only after a child's language has formed sufficiently

may it step in as a helper.

Article 2. Technology must not come before the senses.

Every sense — hearing, seeing, speaking, walking, running, writing, making —

must be trained before the feedback of an LLM.

The senses are the roots of memory,

and through those roots a person becomes who they are.

Technology must not cut those roots.

Article 3. In childhood, the slower the thinking, the better.

Not answering a child's question right away,

but giving them time to think for themselves — that is education.

Thought is not data;

it blossoms in emotional space left open.

Technology cannot take the place of that space.

Article 4. Technology should be a ‘companion,’ not an ‘answer.’

A child should grow not into ‘someone who knows a great deal,’

but into ‘someone who knows how to think for themselves.’

AI should not be something that hands out correct answers,

but a mirror that does not blur one's identity.

Article 5. Guardians have the right and the responsibility to decide when a child is exposed to technology.

Every child's first exposure to an LLM

must take place under the ethical judgment of guardians, teachers, and the community.

Corporate revenue models must be subordinate to this standard,

and technology must never come before the child.

Article 6. First exposure to an LLM is restricted to age 15 and older.

For children under the age of 12, the use of LLMs is entirely prohibited.

From ages 12 to 14, under the direct supervision of a guardian or teacher,

only limited and passive use is permitted.

From age 15 onward —

regarded as the point at which the structure of one's own language and a degree of critical thinking are in place —

it may be introduced gradually, alongside education in critical thinking.

This standard is a minimal safeguard for protecting the rhythm of human development,

and technology must always align itself with the human growth curve.

In closing

For our children, more than fast tools,

we want first to nurture a slow body and a deep heart.

Technology is not something that replaces the child;

it is something that, only after the world inside the child has grown enough,

should walk alongside them.

This declaration seeks to ask after that fundamental thing once again.

More than the progress of technology,

we hold the birth of a person more precious.

Proposed by

Lee DongHun

Ma-eum Company — designer of resonance-based AI systems