Socio-technical Imaginaries: Envisioning and Understanding AI Parenting Supports through Design Fiction

Abstract

How might emerging modalities (e.g., NLP) be leveraged to transform the provision of parenting support? To explore the role of AI technologies in supporting parenting behaviour—and child-well-being—we surveyed 92 parents to gather their perspectives on nine future-oriented scenarios. We used Design Fiction and Speed Dating to understand parents needs and preferences around the design of agent-based supports. We explore the perceived benefits of AI assistants (i.e., receiving objective feedback, managing emotions and personalised guidance) and the most voiced concerns (i.e., AI undermining parental authority, replacing human interactions, and promoting lazy parenting). Finally, we highlight a number of plausible design directions based on the scenarios that parents were positive about.