The capabilities of generative AI (genAI) have dramatically increased in recent times, and there are opportunities for children to leverage new features for personal and school-related endeavors. However, while the future of genAI is taking form, there remain potentially harmful limitations, such as generation of outputs with misinformation and bias. We ran a workshop study focused on ChatGPT to explore middle school girls' (N = 26) attitudes and reasoning about how genAI works. We focused on girls who are often disproportionately impacted by algorithmic bias. We found that: (1) middle school girls were initially overtrusting of genAI, (2) deliberate exposure to the limitations and mistakes of generative AI shifted this overtrust to disillusionment about genAI capabilities, though they were still optimistic for future possibilities of genAI, and (3) their ideas about school policy were nuanced. This work informs how children think about genAI like ChatGPT and its integration in learning settings.

翻译：近年来，生成式人工智能（genAI）的能力显著提升，儿童有机会利用其新功能完成个人及学业任务。然而，尽管生成式AI的未来形态正在形成，其仍存在潜在的有害局限性，例如可能生成包含错误信息或偏见的内容。我们围绕ChatGPT开展了一项工作坊研究，以探究初中女生（N=26）对生成式AI运作机制的态度与推理过程。研究聚焦于因算法偏见而受不成比例影响的女生群体。结果表明：（1）初中女生最初对生成式AI表现出过度信任；（2）通过刻意接触生成式AI的局限性与错误，这种过度信任转变为对其能力的质疑，尽管她们仍对未来可能性持乐观态度；（3）她们对学校相关政策的看法呈现复杂性。本研究揭示了儿童如何认知ChatGPT这类生成式AI及其在学习场景中的整合应用。