  Research on children's initial conceptions of AI is in an emerging state,
which, from a constructivist viewpoint, challenges the development of
pedagogically sound AI-literacy curricula, methods, and materials. To
contribute to resolving this need in the present paper, qualitative survey data
from 195 children were analyzed abductively to answer the following three
research questions: What kind of misconceptions do Finnish 5th and 6th graders'
have about the essence AI?; 2) How do these misconceptions relate to common
misconception types?; and 3) How profound are these misconceptions? As a
result, three misconception categories were identified: 1) Non-technological
AI, in which AI was conceptualized as peoples' cognitive processes (factual
misconception); 2) Anthropomorphic AI, in which AI was conceptualized as a
human-like entity (vernacular, non-scientific, and conceptual misconception);
and 3) AI as a machine with a pre-installed intelligence or knowledge (factual
misconception). Majority of the children evaluated their AI-knowledge low,
which implies that the misconceptions are more superficial than profound. The
findings suggest that context-specific linguistic features can contribute to
students' AI misconceptions. Implications for future research and AI literacy
education are discussed.
