Katie Salen Tekinbaş, a University of California, Irvine informatics professor and game designer, argued on July 29, 2026, that generative AI is changing childhood play by turning open-ended creation into a sequence of machine-made suggestions. She cited Elon University’s first AI Play camp in June, where middle school students played Tic-Tac-Toe by writing and following fixed instructions like an AI agent (software that acts toward a task). The activity showed how play without improvisation is becoming more common as AI tools can generate a Roblox universe, build in Minecraft, finish a half-drawn character, or turn a rough story idea into a finished one.

Salen Tekinbaş said public concern about children and AI has centered on harmful content, risky social interactions with companion chatbots, and weakening independent reasoning and problem-solving as students rely on AI to write and plan. She also said adults worry they are not preparing children enough for an AI-enabled future. Direct evidence on youth-AI interaction is still emerging, but she said these concerns are real and incomplete because they miss the shrinking space where children explore ideas not selected, optimized, or created for them.

The author described her tween daughter and friends as living between older forms of play and AI-shaped play. In one space, AI completes drawings and stories and supplies an endless stream of AI-generated short videos. In another, five girls have spent almost a year building and breaking a shared world in a group chat, using inside jokes, memes, and rules no adult designed and no chatbot directed. Salen Tekinbaş said that world gives them power because the play belongs to them.

The article noted that in 2013 the UN recognized play as a fundamental right for all children, essential to development and wellbeing. Salen Tekinbaş argued that AI can threaten that right when it narrows play into choices to accept or reject instead of expanding a possibility space for imagining and exploring. She said this outcome is not inevitable, pointing to Minecraft servers, Discord communities, and peer-to-peer networks where young people build moderation systems, mediate conflicts, and create community norms, sometimes with AI but more often through play.

Salen Tekinbaş said one study found children described generative AI as a creative accelerator that can turn a stuck idea into a finished picture or plot in seconds. She argued that the same speed can take over the initiating, imagining, and finishing that young people need for development. She called for more free, self-directed online play, including neighborhood Minecraft servers, youth-run YouTube channels, unscripted group chats, online games, DeviantArt, and Archive of Our Own, while resisting routine AI use for ideation, explanation, reassurance, or completion.

The author said designers and policymakers should move beyond risk-only thinking and create developmentally aligned guardrails (rules matched to children’s growth) that preserve youth-directed play and real choice in AI-shaped spaces. She said any AI system deployed at scale for young people should be judged by whether it expands or limits their power and voice. Her closing example returned to her daughter’s group chat, where five girls improvise rules, shift alliances daily, and make the play their own.

Katie Salen Tekinbaş, a University of California, Irvine informatics professor and game designer, argued on July 29, 2026, that generative AI is changing childhood play by turning open-ended creation into a sequence of machine-made suggestions. She cited Elon University’s first AI Play camp in June, where middle school students played Tic-Tac-Toe by writing and following fixed instructions like an AI agent (software that acts toward a task). The activity showed how play without improvisation is becoming more common as AI tools can generate a Roblox universe, build in Minecraft, finish a half-drawn character, or turn a rough story idea into a finished one.

Salen Tekinbaş said public concern about children and AI has centered on harmful content, risky social interactions with companion chatbots, and weakening independent reasoning and problem-solving as students rely on AI to write and plan. She also said adults worry they are not preparing children enough for an AI-enabled future. Direct evidence on youth-AI interaction is still emerging, but she said these concerns are real and incomplete because they miss the shrinking space where children explore ideas not selected, optimized, or created for them.

The author described her tween daughter and friends as living between older forms of play and AI-shaped play. In one space, AI completes drawings and stories and supplies an endless stream of AI-generated short videos. In another, five girls have spent almost a year building and breaking a shared world in a group chat, using inside jokes, memes, and rules no adult designed and no chatbot directed. Salen Tekinbaş said that world gives them power because the play belongs to them.

The article noted that in 2013 the UN recognized play as a fundamental right for all children, essential to development and wellbeing. Salen Tekinbaş argued that AI can threaten that right when it narrows play into choices to accept or reject instead of expanding a possibility space for imagining and exploring. She said this outcome is not inevitable, pointing to Minecraft servers, Discord communities, and peer-to-peer networks where young people build moderation systems, mediate conflicts, and create community norms, sometimes with AI but more often through play.

Salen Tekinbaş said one study found children described generative AI as a creative accelerator that can turn a stuck idea into a finished picture or plot in seconds. She argued that the same speed can take over the initiating, imagining, and finishing that young people need for development. She called for more free, self-directed online play, including neighborhood Minecraft servers, youth-run YouTube channels, unscripted group chats, online games, DeviantArt, and Archive of Our Own, while resisting routine AI use for ideation, explanation, reassurance, or completion.

The author said designers and policymakers should move beyond risk-only thinking and create developmentally aligned guardrails (rules matched to children’s growth) that preserve youth-directed play and real choice in AI-shaped spaces. She said any AI system deployed at scale for young people should be judged by whether it expands or limits their power and voice. Her closing example returned to her daughter’s group chat, where five girls improvise rules, shift alliances daily, and make the play their own.