  Historically, researchers have focused on analyzing WEIRD, adult perspectives
on technology. This means we may not have technology developed appropriately
for children and those from non-WEIRD countries. In this paper, we analyze
children and parents from various countries' perspectives on an emerging
technology: conversational agents. We aim to better understand participants'
trust of agents, partner models, and their ideas of "ideal future agents" such
that researchers can better design for these users. Additionally, we empower
children and parents to program their own agents through educational workshops,
and present changes in perceptions as participants create and learn about
agents. Results from the study (n=49) included how children felt agents were
significantly more human-like, warm, and dependable than parents did, how
participants trusted agents more than parents or friends for correct
information, how children described their ideal agents as being more artificial
than human-like than parents did, and how children tended to focus more on fun
features, approachable/friendly features and addressing concerns through agent
design than parents did, among other results. We also discuss potential agent
design implications of the results, including how designers may be able to best
foster appropriate levels of trust towards agents by focusing on designing
agents' competence and predictability indicators, as well as increasing
transparency in terms of agents' information sources.
