Name: Are you My Best Friend? Exploring Children’s Relationships with AI Companions
Start: 2026-05-12T10:45:00-0700
End: 2026-05-12T11:45:00-0700

Are you My Best Friend? Exploring Children’s Relationships with AI Companions

Tuesday May 12, 2026 10:45am - 11:45am PDT

Shiley Hall 101

Children’s relationships are essential for learning. Through interactions with parents, peers, and educators, children learn how to navigate the social world by building and fostering relationships. Children also take an active role in their social development, sometimes creating imaginary friends that they interact and play with. With the rise of AI powered smart toys and companion apps, questions arise as to the role these companion bots may play in children’s social development. Will these synthetic relationships enhance children’s emotional well-being and social skills? Is it also possible that these relationships could disrupt children’s developing social networks? In this interactive presentation, Dr. Naomi Aguiar will explore children’s real friends, imaginary friends, and how these relationships can help us make sense of children’s budding relationships with AI chatbots. She’ll discuss the psychological mechanisms that drive children to form bonds with AI companions, as well as the design features that encourage these bonds. Dr. Aguiar will also discuss the benefits and risk AI companion bots pose to children’s social development and she’ll suggest harm mitigation strategies.

Speakers

Naomi Aguiar

Associate Director of Research, Oregon State University Ecampus

Dr. Naomi Aguiar is an expert in how children and adults think about and form relationships with AI chatbots, and how these relationships can impact real world learning and behavior. She also has expertise in the imaginary relationships children and adults create for themselves- either... Read More →

Tuesday May 12, 2026 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Shiley Hall 101 Shiley Hall, 5000 N Willamette Blvd, Portland, OR 97203, USA

Human-Centered & Ethical AI Literacy

Level Anyone

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AIEmpoweredEDU2026

Naomi Aguiar

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