Real Safety AI Foundation / Research

AI Literacy, Tutoring, and Special Education

Teaching Kids to Fish: A Position Paper on AI Literacy Education

Publisher: Real Safety AI Foundation

Position paper.

Written
February 2026
Pages
8
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Abstract

The dominant approach to child digital safety relies on surveillance and restriction: monitoring software, content filters, device lockdowns, and data collection systems designed to stand between children and online threats. This paper argues that this paradigm is fundamentally flawed for the same reasons that D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was fundamentally flawed. It treats children as passive subjects to be shielded rather than developing agents to be educated. Decades of peer-reviewed research demonstrate a consistent pattern across domains. Programs that rely on fear, restriction, and information withholding produce worse outcomes than programs that build knowledge, critical thinking, and autonomous decision-making capability. The child digital safety industry has ignored this evidence in favor of products that are easier to market but harder to justify on the merits. Real Safety AI Foundation advocates an education-first model that builds lasting competence in digital citizenship, threat recognition, privacy hygiene, and critical evaluation of online content. Protection should live inside the child's own capability, not inside a surveillance apparatus that erodes trust, violates privacy, and inevitably fails the moment the child steps outside its reach.

Plain language slides

First slide of the plain language summary of Teaching Kids to Fish: A Position Paper on AI Literacy EducationOpen the 14-slide summary (PDF)

Suggested citation

Gilly, Travis. "Teaching Kids to Fish: A Position Paper on AI Literacy Education." Real Safety AI Foundation Position Paper, February 2026. https://realsafetyai.org/research/bds6p4/

References (10)

This list was read from the PDF text. Where the two differ, the PDF is correct.

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