Bring Humanity Back with AI
curaJOY's Taiwan team at work

Bring Humanity Back with AI

People can be cruel, even kids. If you flap your hands, fidget weirdly, cover your ears from loud noises, have the wrong phone, or commit any other social faux pas, the other kids might not ever talk to you at school. You will read books and watch movies where best friends have sleepover parties and weekends together, and wonder if it's all fiction.

Years before the chatGPT craze, I started envisioning the AI coaches who are in MyCuraJOY as a gift to my autistic daughter. She was becoming a teenager but had never made a real friend. I tried to make her feel better by saying “But I'm your best friend, and I'll always be here for you.” Even though we had and still have the tightest bonds, I wasn't enough. She said she just wanted to know what having a friend felt like. She wanted to know that someone other than her mom would be willing to be her friend.?

Sometimes parents can do everything right—they can set up play dates, and volunteer in classrooms— but their kids might still struggle. I can't force anyone to be friendly, loyal, or forgiving, so I had this crazy idea and asked her what her idea of a friend was. How would it feel to have a friend???

It was crazy—"Nobody wants to be your friend? Mama will make you one."

  • You will always have somebody who thinks you're cool enough and worthy of their time.
  • You will be given chances and not shunned because you may have had problems controlling anger in the past.
  • Your interests may be narrow and obscure, but your AI coach will share your interests so you don't feel so alone and weird.?
  • You may be scared to try new things or even start conversations in the lunch line. Your AI coach will help you rehearse these difficult situations until you have the confidence to try them in the real world.
  • You will have an AI coach 24/7 so that aides don't have to follow you around at school closely all the time.

It's been such a hard journey, and I founded the nonprofit curaJOY to give this gift to you and all those who feel they don't matter. The technical difficulty was incredible, and the commitment to making this solution nonprofit, clinician-friendly and community-driven exponentially increased the project’s difficulty.

But people came forward to help. Software engineers, researchers, designers, and clinicians came forward to build with me. Many came because they knew what it's like to have nobody. Others helped because they wished they had something like MyCuraJOY while growing up and going through difficult times. They came to build with me because they've searched and tried, and know the existing solutions aren't enough. (Thank you, Caitlin Marcus, MA, BCBA Marc Lanovaz Daniel Yeh Jasmine Montoya Jonathan Tarbox Myles Terry

We are finally close to a private beta. It's taken so long because we want to do this right.

  • We protect kids and all users from advertisements and getting their data sold. People need someone who's always there for them and on their side, helping—not someone who's always selling them things.
  • We want to make sure our AI coaches don't threaten clinicians' and teachers' pay or job security. Rather, we use AI to make their jobs easier and better.
  • We want to build a sustainable product that would deliver Medicaid and other publicly funded services so that affordability would never be a barrier.
  • We use AI to improve and increase not reduce positive human connections, showing people ways of parenting and love when they haven’t seen it in their lives.
  • We want to empower kids, parents, clinicians and teachers--the everyday people rather than tech giants, insurance or governments--to build and shape our AI.

If you need this product for yourself, your family or community, please help to make MyCuraJOY a reality.? Support us, build with us, fund us, or just talk about us.? Together, we can use AI to remind people how they can communicate positively and compassionately. We use AI where humans cannot.?

To my children: “You deserve someone who’s always there for you. I pour my love into MyCuraJOY because I know the world is messed up sometimes and people can forget what’s important. I won’t always be here and I can’t take away all the hurt.? But even when I’m gone, remember I (and a bunch of Joymakers) cared enough to show you how much compassion and hope there can be.

#responsibleai #techforgood #youthwellness #familywellness #behavioralhealth

I was that kid without a friend and getting bullied. My dog became my bridge to having my first friend. AI provides incredible new options to those who had few of them previously. Thank you and congratulations on behalf of all of them who will benefit from the project you took on. And won. ??

Natalie Codina

UX Designer at curaJOY ??

8 个月

So excited for this product to launch and help so many people around the world. Your story and vision of what AI can do to aid humanity is inspirational and I’m honored to be able to work alongside you to bring this vision to life!

Caitlin Marcus, MA, BCBA

LLM-training, prompt-engineering behavior scientist | in flux | rebel w/ cause | audhd | The Swimming Fairy ?? Special Needs Swim Coaching and Drowning Prevention Education

8 个月

Caitlyn...it is such an honor to work with curaJOY and especially with you. Your vision is so humongous and pure. curaJOY is the exemplification of "if you build it, they will come." The right people will show up. We have BUILT the damn thing!!! ?? From a little wireframe to now potentially official community outreach support from Meta, to providers and parents who excitedly reach out wanting to know more, to growing an international team of future leaders in tech - this has been the coolest and most educational experience for me and I'm extremely proud and thankful to be on your team.

Milica Sequeira

UX/UI Designer

8 个月

Its an honour to work on CuraJOY. Thank you for the opportunity.

Steve Taplin

CEO at Sonatafy, AI/ML led Nearshore Software Development synced with US time zones for maximum Productivity & Collaboration | Forbes & Entrepreneur Author

8 个月

This is truly inspirational! Your commitment to creating a supportive community is powerful. ??

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