Youth Development and Technology II: Ethics, Privacy, and Wellbeing
Institute of Human Development integrative panel
[Co-sponsored by Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, Lea Witkowsky, PhD, Executive Director]
Panelists:
Jodi Halpern, MD, PhD, Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Berkeley Public Health; Co-Director, Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public
Nicole Ozer, Esq., Technology & Civil Liberties Director, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California
Discussants:
Kaylene Stocking, PhD Student, UC Berkeley Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS); Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public Fellow in AI
Lisa Dunlap, PhD Student, UC Berkeley Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) and Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab
Ronald Dahl, MD, Professor of Community Health Sciences, Berkeley Public Health; Founding Director, Center for the Developing Adolescent; former director, Institute of Human Development
Please join us for a dynamic cross-sector panel discussion with experts on digital technology, civil liberties, privacy, and computer science on the major implications of and guardrails for digital technologies including social media, AI, and "companion bots" for the healthy development and mental health of children and youth. We will discuss concerns about the bots being designed to increase user engagement and the impact of this on youth dependency and addiction. Across disciplines, we will consider questions aligned with the framing of this recent Journal of Adolescent Health paper: "To maximize benefits and minimize risks for young people, we need to bring together best practices from research, including youth participatory research, clinical work, and law and policy. We must implement interventions that effectively build on research, the lived experiences of diverse young people, and that fully utilize the tools of law and policy to power political passage of stronger privacy laws and withstand constitutional scrutiny in the courts." (Gamble & Ozer, 2025.)