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Using AI to Monitor Kids Online
eldavojohn writes "An Australian startup believes that the best way to protect your children online is through an artificially intelligent software program. The inventors of this idea are banking on children's attachment to pets. The creature's 'cuteness' and helpfulness will ingratiate the software with the child, so that he or she will respect it and listen to it, or even find it as a likable companion. Agent-based internet applications are nothing new but for concerned parents, this might be an admirable solution to what is perceived by many to be a growing problem. From one of the inventors: 'Of course, we're also planning to release a version of the Moji IM for teenagers and adults, but we're focusing on children at the moment.'"
Ha, and here I was thinking that the best way to protect your children online was having an honest and open relationship and giving them decent social/online education: What a fool I am.
I'm all for keeping kids safe and sound on "teh internetz" but I think a better solution would be more education...however, education that is not made in a stupid way.
Teach kids what is safe (your name, your interests) and not safe (you address, phone number, email) to tell "strangers" online...don't teach our kids to FEAR the internet (much like they do with sex-ed in school) teach them to utilize it safely.
I think this is a good step in the right direction, but I think the efforts could be more useful through other ways. Still, good for them for at least trying to combat the problem.
Education for parents to not give their young teens unfettered and unmonitored access might help. You don't have to stand over their shoulder or anything, but put the computer in a place like the family room or the kitchen...just having you in the same ROOM will at least HELP to deter them from doing things they shouldn't
Living With a Nerd
The intent seems more prevention than prosecution.
Developers: We can use your help.
What it's really about...
FTA:
Fong noted that Mor(f)'s technology may also impact the way advertising is done online.
Since Moji pets are able to understand user preferences, it could be programmed to suggest products to the user in a more personal manner.
What I can't quite understand is why no one has thought of parenting as being the best way to protect your children online. I realize it's revolutionary and scary, but hey, we could give it a try, couldn't we?
What's wrong with people? Lots of things. In relation to kids? Too many stupid fuckers don't actually want them, but society tells them having kids is the expected, normal thing to do. We all remember the one important lesson from school, right? Be normal or be an outcast. So these stupid fuckers do what is expected of them, but they never really wanted a kid. Or rather, they never really wanted the responsibility that comes with having a kid.
They never stopped to think about it because society said they don't have to, just do it, have a kid, God will love you and you get great tax breaks! So the kid pops out and the parents say, "Wait a minute, THIS isn't what we ordered! I'm sorry, we ordered the model that would love us unconditionally and justify our existence? This one just seems to cry and poop. We were promised fulfillment, where's that? I don't see any of that, but I sure see a lot of poop."
These schmucks then turn to any solution that purports to take responsibility for the kids. TV, schools, grandparents, toys, magic AI programs, anything that will shut the little fuckers up for a second or two.
And those kids go on to make up the perfectly well-adjusted bulk of humanity that we all know and love. Circle of life, ain't it grand?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This gives a whole new meaning to the term 'exploit'. What happens when your eNanny gets compromised, and starts encouraging your kid to do drugs and whore themselves out? Who's going to monitor the monitoring software?
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
You were (mostly) modded funny, but you make a very good point. Many times when I hear "think of the children!!" arguments, I conclude that the situation wouldn't be a problem if the parents were ACTUALLY PARENTING. I know that parents can't watch their children 24/7, but this just seems like it is making it easier for parents to sit their children in front of some box (computer instead of TV this time) and take a minimalistic approach to parenting.
Yes, I've felt it. So has my wife. But studies seem to show that most of that biological pressure is actually situational. The wealthier and more comfortable a couple is, the less they will want to have kids. This is why, barring immigration, some countries such as Italy have negative population growth, while third world parents are still having 6-10 kids.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That's a little misleading...Those statistics include people who are arrested for various types of exhibitionism, public indecency, possession of child porn, etc, and not just people who actually go out and actively solicit children for sex.
It's been true in the past, and it's true right now, and it, in all likelihood, will continue to be true...It is far far far more likely for a child to be molested/sexually assaulted by a family member than by a random stranger off the internet...90.2% of sex crimes against minors (bjs) (17 and younger) were by acquaintances and family members, and that percentage only gets higher as they get younger.
As usual though, no one wants to look at that issue...They would much much rather focus on the improbable event of an assault by a stranger, than the far more likely event of an assault by a family member or a family friend.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Too many stupid f---s don't actually want them, but society tells them having kids is the expected, normal thing to do.
How true! As an intentionally childless couple, my wife and I frequently find ourselves in a conversation like this:
"Helpful" friend: Why don't you have kids?
Me: We don't feel a strong drive to have any right now.
"Helpful" friend: Why don't you try having a couple kids to see if you like it? You'd make great parents. I'm sure you'll be happy.
Me: !
Why would anyone want to encourage people who don't want kids to have them? Maybe to validate their own decisions?
If this doesn't show the cold dark heart of a corporation that peddles to children, then I don't know what does.
I totally disagree. I think that parents with children would flock to an IM service that worked against issues like these. The one thing that Windows XP Home got right is the user account control. Parents can easily set up kids accounts that cannot install software. If the parent knows that one IM service is better controling content and watching out for prowlers online, they would install that system. Parents tend to talk with other parents too and it would spread like wildfire. Schools, local police and other interested parties could also do great work to spread the word. If a parent is having some sort of sexual encounter online and wants to use something else to feel like it's more discreet then fine, but I seriously think that the first IM service to offer something like this would flourish.
Dissenter
"There is no knowledge that is not power."
I'd have to agree.
I think the best thing anyone can do for themselves it to get a vasectomy as soon as they realize that having children is merely a genetic impulse that we are programmed to do.
The impulse is the same thing that makes us want to have sex, drink caffeine, play World of Warcraft, do drugs, or whatever stimulates your brain.
It isn't a bad thing per se but you have to realize that maybe it isn't something you have to do in life to be happy. Quite the contrary if you consider financial success to be happiness which you may or may not see as real happiness but I digress.
The problem that we as a society faces is that the most intelligent or wealthy people (who perhaps were wealthy because of intelligence factors) realize this and either have 1 or no kids essentially reducing the gene pool of people who don't want to have massive amounts of kids they don't want.
Intelligence is of course relative and I know a few PHDs with buttloads of kids so you can always generalize by a case by case basis if you throw free will into the mix.
However, if you reflect on the action as you as a person deciding to have a child and its impact on you, society, and the environment then you realize that it doesn't really make a difference in the grand scheme of things when you have a child.
From a personal conclusion about having a child still means you will die... And so will your child and eventually all memories of you and your world maybe lost and you won't care since you are dead. With that in mind, I have personally decided that it is pointless to have children and would only be a detriment to me, the child (bad family genetics), possibly society from my lack of interest in said child, and the environment due to me causing more resources to be used.
So... As the parent poster said... The core problem of this issue is not that child is uncared for with their internet usage, but rather people who shouldn't be having children just to have them.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
You can keep your "requirements", thank you.
Also, if you want to discuss this, make a point. Two questions and an overly vague statement do not an argument make.
The whole idea of getting a child to trust a bit of software to tell it what's right and wrong should make programers and parents alike cringe. Not to mention anyone who is aware of the uses to which this information can/will be put to in the name of marketting to children, which is bad enough as it is. I wonder how long it will take before children are 'told' that certain sites are better than others, directing them away from sites that don't promote a particular political or corporate agenda. Or that 'controversial' issues somehow fall into the not to be trusted category. When it comes to children and technology, the goal is to educate parents and provide safe opportunities for children online, NOT to fob it off to a bit of software for all the myriad reasons. Just imagine what these children will grow up like when they've just trusted the software from their earliest days. I cringe.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2013.808365
exploiting child-predation as a form of mass entertainment. outstanding indeed.
despite NBC's fearmongering, true cases of kids dumb enough to invite sexual predators into their homes or fly out to meet them are very very very extremely rare. your kid is probably a lot safer from child predators surfing myspace at home than they probably are at school(which is not to say that they are in any great danger at school and you shouldn't let them go to school).
As others have mentioned. If your 12-year-old kid isn't emotionally neglected they probably won't be looking for strange 40-year-old men on the internet to have sex with.