“My 16-year-old son got scammed. We’ve had all the talks about online safety, but it still happened.”
“Finally, after begging for over a year, I let my 15-year old get Fortnite and Discord because she likes gaming and was a responsible kid. 2.5 months later…I find out she’s talking daily to 4 adults who are all friends that she met on Fortnite. She gave her age and her name and there were inappropriate conversations going on.”
“How do you have a respectful conversation about privacy and boundaries with a teenager? We want to be firm but fair, and could really use some advice.”
“How are we supposed to keep our kids safe when the tech doesn’t even give us the tools?”
These are all from parents who wrote to NCOSE, pleading for help to protect their kids from the Internet’s harms. For many of them, they had no idea what kinds of dangers their kids could encounter online. And even for many parents that were proactive, their kids fell victim to exploitation anyway.
That’s why the NCOSE Parent Center exists. We’re here to guide parents on their journey to manage tech in their families. We’re here to build a community that stands together to protects children.
And now, we are combatting the harms of technology by using it for good. Today, we launched the Parent Center AI Tool: an AI chatbot that is trained on specially curated, trusted sources, with the goal of helping parents keep their kids safe online!
How is This AI Tool Different from Mainstream AI Chatbots?
By this point, we’ve seen countless headlines about the harms that AI chatbots have inflicted upon their users, specifically children. So, you might be wondering how safe our AI chatbot tool is. Here’s the difference:
The Parent Center AI Tool has been trained on specially curated sources for parents and caregivers. It derives its responses from a database consisting only of resources from NCOSE and our trusted partner organizations, all of whom have consented to have their content surface in this tool.
This prevents the tool from answering questions that are outside its scope of expertise. The tool does not act as an AI “companion,” like many of the chatbots that have harmed children. It only seeks to provide advice about protecting children online. If a user tries to ask the tool about an unrelated topic, the tool will refuse to answer the query.
Finally, to ensure its safety, this tool has also been thoroughly tested by parents, caregivers, teachers, subject matter experts, and cybersecurity experts. The developers of this tool relied heavily on feedback from testers and NCOSE staff to ensure it aligns with our vision and does not cause any harm to its users.
What Kinds of Issues Does the Parent Center AI Tool Provide Assistance With?
The Parent Center AI Tool specifically provides guidance on issues related to child online safety. Although at NCOSE, we cover covers all issues related to sexual exploitation, the Parent Center is only focused on protecting children online.
The following questions are examples of prompts the AI tool would be equipped to answer:
“How do I talk to my young children about the harms of pornography?”
“Can you provide a step-by-step tutorial for setting up parental controls on an iPhone?”
“I found out my daughter is sending sexually explicit images to a peer at school. How do I deal with this?”
It’s important to note that the AI tool is not a place where a user should go in the event of an emergency. While the tool can provide you with assistance on how to handle real-time exploitation on the Internet, it’s important to always consult law enforcement if a crime has been committed.
The Parent Center AI tool provides assistance anytime, anywhere, and it’s free!
Try out the AI Tool today at chat.parentcenter.org.
What Else Does the Parent Center Have to Offer?
While the AI tool lies at the heart of the Parent Center, our goal is to provide a community for parents who are dedicated to keeping their kids safe on the Internet. We provide a monthly newsletter to keep parents updated on tech in the news and provide insights into how you can be proactive in your home, your community and the wider world.
Next month, we’ll be launching our 7-Minute Club Podcast! For as little as $7 per month, users can join the 7-minute club and get weekly episodes with news, parenting tips, and actions, all in the name of protecting children online. And only 7-minute episodes to accommodate our parents’ busy schedules!
If you’d like to support the Parent Center, visit parentcenter.org to learn more and make a donation.
