Outline your provisional project topic and format (‘mode of representation’)
For my project, I hope to make the understanding of digital and AI rights easier for children specifically, alongside other marginalised groups who could be exploited through a lack of understanding of their rights. I aim to simplify understanding the GDPR and forthcoming AI Act through gamification, with prompts and actions that relate to the outlined principles and laws. I also hope to introduce some ethical elements into the game, to provide a well-rounded perspective. I’ll include definitions of concepts and rights transgressions. Too often, the digital literacy of children is limited to a rudimentary understanding of internet safety, instead of a firm foundation of rights which they can carry with them as they become adults. When I looked for previous examples of these board games, they did not attempt to teach these digital and data rights, only basic examples of internet safety. Given that children are exposed to technology much sooner than they were in the past, the digital rights education must be reflected earlier in their lives, to ensure that they do not fall victim to techno-moralisation, in which the abuses of digital rights become normalised. The next generation of digital users will have to be collective in their resistance to having their sensitive and profile data used by default, especially as AI applications become more ubiquitous and embedded in everyday technologies.
To achieve this mode of representation, I’ll have to conduct research on effective means of engaging children in games, and on game design. I may have to interview parents and teachers to understand how rudimentary these prompts have to be, and decide on a minimum age group which is required for a holistic (or at least dimensional) understanding of these rights. I hope to collaborate with my Education Futures colleagues to understand which modes of teaching have been most effective and memorable for young children.
I aim to make this intervention physical. Concrete representation of these rights is important to ensure that they cannot be ignored, or ‘swiped away’ / accepted, as I learnt from my Narratives of Digital Capitalism course. Whether this concrete representation will take the form of a board game or a deck of cards in a kind of ‘what if’/ethical dilemma fashion is a format I still have to decide on. But, I will make the game available online in an open source format, so others can download and add to the game in a way which suits their needs. Nevertheless, I hope to make use of all the tools offered in the MakerSpace to further my own understanding of creation, and to continually collect ideas and understanding of the data legislation.
Thinking of caveats, I understand that GDPR and proposed EU AI Act may change as time goes on. I’ll have to address how to incorporate these changes, perhaps through ‘expansion packs’. I also understand that children may struggle to maintain focus on physical interventions, given the level of engagement that is afforded through online mediums that they use.
I also hope that through this I will gain a more in depth understanding of this legislation, which is a skill I hope to carry through my life and into my work. At the very least, companies must abide by the rights laid out in legislation, and we have to educate the next generation on what these rights are to ensure they are not transgressed.
