With the new school year underway, education routines increasingly feature children using AI to complete assignments and study difficult subjects.

Kaspersky stated that interest in automated tools continues to rise among students. While these assistants can explain complex topics or outline essays, they also present factual errors and data privacy risks that require active oversight.

Verifying Accuracy and Neural Network Output

Language models generate responses by predicting probable word sequences from their training data rather than verifying objective facts. Consequently, these systems can generate convincing statements that include false references or describe events that never occurred.

These mistakes, known as hallucinations, require students to treat automated answers critically. Parents are advised to establish boundaries where the technology assists with explanations rather than replacing independent homework completion.

Five Questions to Evaluate Online Information

To support digital literacy, Kaspersky proposed a five-question verification framework for students to apply before using generated text:

  • Who or what is the source, and does that reference actually exist?
  • Does the answer match the specific task assigned by the teacher?
  • Can the student explain the reasoning in their own words?
  • Where else can the information be verified in textbooks or notes?
  • Should an adult or teacher be consulted about confusing topics?

Safety Guidelines for Children Using AI

Privacy protection remains a key concern when children using AI treat automated interfaces as private conversation partners. Prompts entered into public tools may be retained to train future models.

Students should not share full names, home addresses, phone numbers, school names, passwords, or personal documents with any artificial intelligence platform. Furthermore, uploading third-party photos or files without permission presents privacy risks.

Device Security and Critical Thinking

Technical protections complement critical thinking skills. Recommended practices include enabling two-factor authentication, using unique passwords, and downloading software only from verified stores.

“AI can be a valuable learning tool when children use it to explore a topic, test their understanding or improve a draft of an essay, rather than simply replace their own work. The key skill is learning not to accept every answer at face value.”

Andrey Sidenko, Cyber Literacy Projects Lead at Kaspersky

Kaspersky offers educational resources such as the Cybersecurity Alphabet book and an introductory course to build family knowledge in cybersecurity and responsible tool usage.