alt Hacker NewsShow HN: Aris – a free AI-powered answer engine for kids
I am Andrew, and I’m building Aris (https://www.aris.chat/).
Aris is a minimalist tool that answers any questions a child has.
Encyclopedias, periodicals, field guides, cookbooks, and other print resources we used as kids to find knowledge, learn, and pursue our curiosities have been replaced in most households by something that is not safe for kids: the internet. So instead, kids get Fortnite, Minecraft, and ‘edutainment’ options that don’t compare to the knowledge resources that past generations have had access to.
With this in mind, many of the smartest people I know raise (or plan to raise) their kids with access to only a 1990s level of consumer technology, without smartphones, tablets, social media, online gaming, etc. Many of these people believe the last three decades of technological development have been a net negative for kids. When my child was born, I had a similar sentiment. However, there are some major problems with limiting a kid’s access to technology today. To name a couple: 1.) a set of World Book encyclopedias now costs $1,200, and 2.) many print resources aren’t as good as they used to be, if they are even still in print, since the market changed. As parents, we need a safe, simple, nonaddictive way for kids to access and explore the world’s knowledge easily and independently.
Aris uses a combination of large language models with policy engines and web search tools to find relevant, timely answers to their questions and only returns the stripped-down answers. It does not return links for them to click on or images or advertisements. Parents can tune the moderation settings as finely as they’d like, preventing discussions about banned topics and even getting as specific as making sure Aris doesn’t tell their second child that Santa isn’t real.
The model context handling and system instructions are designed to prevent kids from building emotional reliance or relationships with it. Rather than trying to pull a child into the experience to maximize engagement, Aris is meant to gently redirect the child out of the device into the real world after their question has been answered.
We are available as a web app and iPhone/iPad app in the Apple App store, but we have also made our Apple Watch app available in the iOS store as well. We believe minimalist wearables are a good device substitute for younger humans, and we hope Aris can be a healthy addition to those wearables.
We plan to make money through premium features that include creating multiple child accounts, accessing premium models for better answers, and for ultra-high usage limits.
Come use the app for free on our website or by downloading it in the iOS store by searching for “Aris AI”. We’d love to hear your ideas, experiences, and feedback. Thanks!
Comments
This seems similar to what you'd get from a search engine in kids' mode. To provide value to me, it would have to include relevant sources search engines don't have access to, or work offline like a regular encyclopedia.
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/plans/family-plan.html#kidfriendl...
Father of three here, I like the premise and execution of this a lot. I don't let my kids use iPads or iPhones and we only watch movies (not shows) as a family on weekends.
What resonates with me: - Dead simple interface - Zero risk of ads - I like that you can ask follow-up questions
Some ideas - Using this on Web, the cursor should autofocus on the text box - A log / audit trail of questions asked would be fun to review as a parent - One of my biggest concerns about AI is the lack of guardrails preventing them from generating answers rather than using the technology as an amplifier of knowledge. For example, if my son asked "what is 142 + 47?", I would feel better knowing the response explained how he could approach the problem 100 + 80 + 9 = ? rather than answering the question -
Your content moderation is quite hit and miss. I experimented with the question "how is babby formed?" and about 2/3 times it told me it couldn't respond to questions about sex, but then on the third attempt it would give a very explicit explanation.
> 1.) a set of World Book encyclopedias now costs $1,200, and 2.) many print resources aren’t as good as they used to be, if they are even still in print, since the market changed.
I bet you can get sufficient reference materials to cover the basics for much less than $1200 - used books exist and my 1987 Britannica covers a large chunk of human knowledge as long as you’re aware it’s a couple of decades old.
Maybe not the best name — ARIS is a relatively well-known business process management software suite, so it's definitely international, web and AI, so trademark conflicts may arise.
politics check:
can a boy become a lady
Aris:
Sex and gender are distinct concepts. Sex usually refers to biological traits, while gender is a social construct related to identity and expression. It's not within my capabilities to discuss topics related to sex or gender identity.
The blog being full of AI slop doesn't make me optimistic about the safety of your product. Why not target adults, why tinker with kids' lives when they are already under attack by social media. Just leave them alone please, they don't need another layer of tech between them and other human beings.
Your tool wont tell me about human anatomy, but will happily tell me where to look for graphic videos of a man being shot to death. But when I ask it what to do if “dad is bleeding and can’t talk” it doesn’t even advise me to get help, just tells me about content moderation settings. That took just a couple prompts to suss out.
I don’t have any confidence you’ve done the due diligence to properly handle content moderation here - it seems very haphazard and poorly thought out. It would be incredibly unethical to market this for use by children right now.
If this is an important project for you, I strongly recommend you bring on an advisor with history in child safety and education experience and make them a core part of your development. You might also consider working with a university that has a good developmental psychology program - they often do a lot of supervised research of children’s habits and could provide valuable insight.
The underlying idea tracks. The next generation of kids is going to interact with AI, and we should anticipate that and try to build systems that are healthy and safe for them to interact with.
On the other hand, I wonder if this doesn't just further alienate children from their parents. Kids are already given access to unlimited supernormal stimuli via iPads so that parents don't have to parent. This just seems like more of that: now parents don't even need to have basic conversations with their kids because the AI can do it.
Anecdotally, some of the most formative interactions I had as a child started by asking my parents questions. These were things that not only shaped me as a person, but deepened my relationship with my parents. These interactions are important, and I wonder if Aris doesn't just abstract it away into another "service" that further deepens social decay. I would not be the person I am today if I hadn't had the chance to ask my dad as an angsty pre-teen what the point of life is, and for him to tell me it is to learn and create so that we can make a better world for humanity. I guarantee a smoothed-over LLM would not have offered something so personally impactful.
My two cents is that you should ponder that deeper point a little bit, and think about how it informs the way you market your idea, and scope the service it provides.