Editorial: generative artificial intelligence and the ecology of human development

Abstract

There is no escaping the news about Large Generative AI Models (LGAIMs). Commercial applications of artificial intelligence in the form of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI (e.g., chatGPT; Dall-E) have taken centre stage in the media sphere, business, public policy, and education, quickly gaining traction outside the original scholarly field of computer science. Leading developmental researchers such as Frank (2023) and Gopnik (2023) have written on prominent academic platforms about how the science of child development may contribute to the understanding and even the education of LGAIMs. Furthermore, with the hybridization of online and offline social interactions, applications of generative AI are rapidly becoming part of young people's private sphere - transitioning us from the era defined by apps optimised to gain people's attention to a new era that will focus on apps' ability to form direct relationships with their users This is all unfolding at exponential rates, so much so that scholars, opinion makers, and policymakers are sounding the alarm and debating a moratorium to allow research, reflection, and regulation (Clarke, 2023).