Mechanics and Metaphors: Youth Representations of AI Ethics Through Play

Abstract

Educational games are popularly used to teach youth about internet safety and responsible ways to engage with technological systems. While prior work explores game-based learning (GBL) approaches for teaching concepts such as AI ethics and responsible use, there is limited work on understanding appropriate mechanics and metaphors to represent these concepts to youth. In this study, we examine how youth designers represent responsible AI use through co-designing educational games. We co-designed seven games with 46 US high school youth (grades 10-12) participating in an after-school STEM program serving low-income, first-generation, or students traditionally underrepresented in computing. These games focused on AI ethics topics, including bias, misinformation, environmental impact, and privacy. Drawing on analyses of game artifacts and co-design discussions, we identified how youth embedded ethical learning goals into gameplay mechanics and narratives. Students favored mechanics inspired by commercial games they played, created game narratives that positioned AI as inherently harmful, designed protagonists grounded in their own lived experiences, and placed the responsibility of AI harm and misuse on individual users rather than corporations or software developers. Their games also emphasized consequences of misuse using timed urgency and player decision-making. We reflect on open questions of how to assess AI ethics learning outcomes in ethics games, and highlight the need for scaffolding to support more systemic understandings of accountability.