India, Aug. 28 -- For previous generations, childhood slowly faded from their memory. For Gen Alpha, it may become something that machines remember. Search engines, recommendation systems, digital classrooms and AI tutors as part of everyday learning do more than just capture the things children do: they infer what they do, predict what they like and create opportunities for them. This is the start of an 'AI shadow' - a series of guesses and presumptions that a machine draws from a child's online footprints. This is important, as AI continues to grow up quicker than the organisations that regulate it.

The child that India is today is an impressive digital kid. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024, 89.1 per cent ...