A generation of children in China is increasingly being raised at the intersection of artificial intelligence.
They are the first generation in human history to be co-parented by AI. Long before they enter a formal classroom, today’s children are being monitored, entertained, and educated by algorithms that are free from human fatigue.
Speaking English Through an AI Mask
When Zheng, a mother in China’s north-eastern province of Heilongjiang, struggled to help her nine-year-old son practise English, she turned to a novel piece of wearable technology: an AI translation mask.
The device is called Native Language Star and retails at 2,998 yuan (about £310). When Zheng speaks into it in Mandarin, it plays back an English translation, allowing her to hold daily conversation practice with her son. Powered by advanced voice recognition and large language models like DeepSeek, the gadget also supports regional dialects such as Cantonese, Sichuanese and Hunanese.
Wu Ling, a university lecturer in Jiangsu province, took a different approach. Too busy to tutor her son herself, she spent 7,989 yuan (about ￡820) on a robotic dog called AlphaDog.
‘He asks the dog everything—news, weather, geography.’ Wu explains. The device is used for English conversation practice, discussions about current affairs, and even dancing to guitar music played at home. A built-in camera also allows it to monitor the household environment.
‘At Least I Can Grab a 20-minute Nap’
In Hunan province, Li has handed over supervision of her ten-year-old daughter’s homework to ByteDance’s Doubao. ‘It’s a 24-hour tutor,’ she said, noting that the chatbot explains English grammar more clearly than she ever could. Li now routinely uploads assignments for the AI to mark, using its camera feature to identify everything from garden plants to museum artefacts.
‘AI has made education more equal,’ she said.’And I’ve saved tens of thousands of yuan a year on tutoring fees.’
Tong, who lives in Hangzhou, lets Doubao chat with her four-year-old son. The chatbot speaks to the child in a soft, feminine voice about bananas, robots, nursery school and favourite foods. But she has noticed something troubling: her son is becoming less patient.
‘It might be because the AI chatbot always agrees with whatever he says,’ she observed. ‘He’s starting to expect the same from everyone.’
Yet when exhaustion sets in, Tong still reaches for her phone. ‘If I let him chat with Doubao, I can at least grab a 20-minute nap,’ she admitted.
The Lure of Easy Marks
The growing role of AI in education is fueled by the intense pressure of China’s exam system. As the Gaokao — China’s university entrance examination — approaches, some companies have been marketing software that claims to predict exam questions. China’s Ministry of Education has warned that relying on such AI exam-prediction tools to secure high scores is unrealistic.
Survey data suggests parents are genuinely conflicted. A study targeting families with children aged between three and fifteen found that 52.93 per cent allowed their children to use AI tools occasionally for homework, while 16.83 per cent imposed strict limits depending on context. A further 17.47 per cent had banned AI use entirely.
The deepest concern, the survey found, was not the technology itself. Some 41.56 per cent of parents said their biggest worry was that AI would erode their children’s ability to think for themselves.
What Instant Answers Cost
Child psychologists warn that the long-term cost of this automated upbringing may be a gradual erosion of emotional resilience. Zhang Yangqing, a Chinese counselling psychologist, argues that the transition from physical to digital learning fundamentally alters how children experience desire and achievement.
‘The feeling of working something out after a long struggle is completely different from simply scanning a question and watching the answer appear in seconds,’ Zhang said. ‘If children grow up without that experience, they may lose the ability to sit with uncertainty — and the resilience to cope with failure.’
In the survey, parents identified the core skills most vital for the AI era: critical thinking, creativity, and lifelong learning. Yet these are precisely the abilities that AI cannot teach — they can only be built through real-life experience, genuine human interaction, and the often messy process of trial and error.
Written by Estelle Tang, additional reporting by CommonWealth Magazine, New Weekly Magazine, and Chinese Business View.
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