A few weeks ago, I set up a voice interface to ChatGPT for my 3-year old. I have always been an early adopter of technology and believe that AI agents will play a big part in my children's lives, so I wanted to expose them to chatbots sooner than later. Since my wife and I have a pro-screen time approach to parenting and our 3-year-old already has her own iPad, I thought active interaction with a bot would be a much better fit for her screen time than passive video watching.
How to Set Up a Chatbot Voice Interface
To use chatbots for young children, two customizations are necessary. The first is voice input and output. I found that Apple dictation works well for voice input, but unfortunately, Apple's native text-to-speech feature is not up to par. Thus, I plugged it into Google's service to make voice output more child-friendly.
The second customization is to use the system prompt in the OpenAI API to inform ChatGPT that the user is a 3-year old. The bot does an excellent job of adjusting the content, vocabulary, and tone of its output appropriately. This process is what makes the whole thing a success.
Use Case 1: Learning
My daughter uses the chatbot to learn about various topics, including ChatGPT itself. It's incredible how the bot simulates empathy for the child and takes on the role of an adult friend without me asking it to adopt this personality.
For example, when my daughter asked what happens when the lights turn out, the bot responded with an empathetic answer that reassured her and gave her tips to feel safe and comfortable in the dark. However, without letting the system know that the user is a child, the bot produces responses that are entirely unsuitable for young children in terms of language and vocabulary level.
The accuracy of ChatGPT's responses is not an issue, as the bot sufficiently answers any questions that 3-year olds tend to ask.
Use Case 2: Stories
My daughter also uses the chatbot to listen to stories, especially new ones that she hasn't heard before. It's a better fit because having to make up new stories on demand can be exhausting for a parent.
The system prompt contains a few basic details about my children, which the bot can integrate into the story. For instance, the bot cleverly responded with a story of a T-Rex whose owners tried many things to get it to eat real food instead of legos, and finally succeeded in tricking it by making lego-shaped vegetables when my daughter requested a story about a T-Rex that ate legos.
Other Use Cases
With ChatGPT plugins, a ton of use cases become possible. For instance, with the retrieval plugin, ChatGPT can access past conversations and personal documents, including photos, making it a sort of diary or journal that you can talk to. Additionally, with a text-to-image generation plugin, it can generate storybooks on demand based on a topic of the user's choosing.
In conclusion, my experience setting up a ChatGPT voice interface for my 3-year-old has been exceptionally positive, and it has taught me a lot about the opportunities and risks of children's interactions with chatbots. While it's an intensely personal decision, if any parents are considering allowing young children to use chatbots, I hope that this writeup will be useful in helping them get the most out of chatbots while minimizing the risks.
