Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Medium: Using Intelligent Conversational Agents to Empower Adolescents to be Resilient Against Cybergrooming

网络美容已经成为一个严重的社会问题，作案者通过互联网利用与年轻人的信任和情感纽带进行性剥削或性虐待。该项目旨在通过开发一项技术增强的教育方案来解决这一问题，教年轻人如何有效地保护自己免受网上性掠夺。这项研究的新颖贡献在于设计和开发了一种对话代理(即聊天机器人)，青少年可以与之互动，练习(即，从做中学习)如何以使他们不那么容易受到网络培训进步影响的方式做出回应。对话代理提供交互式指导，以便青少年能够理解增加或减少他们受性剥削的脆弱性的反应，并解释原因。该团队正在从父母和青少年那里收集对话数据的例子，以训练对话代理，并使用自然语言处理来开发聊天机器人。研究团队与青少年和专家合作，概念化和设计功能，以定制聊天机器人的界面，并建立一个教育程序。该团队与网络虐待和性交易预防方面的专家合作，开发培训材料，并确保对话代理对青少年是安全的。该项目的研究成果将帮助公众了解人工智能如何促进网络安全。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Cybergrooming has emerged as a serious social concern, where perpetrators exploit the trust and emotional bond with youth through the internet for sexual exploitation or abuse. This project aims to address this issue by developing a technology-enhanced educational program to teach youth how to effectively protect themselves from online sexual predation. The novel contribution of this research is in the design and development of a conversational agent (i.e., chatbot) that teens interact with to practice (i.e., “learning-by-doing”) how to respond in ways that make them less vulnerable to cybergrooming advances. The conversational agent provides interactive coaching so that teens can understand responses that increase or decrease their vulnerability to sexual exploitation and explain why. The team is collecting examples of conversational data from parents and teens to train the conversational agent and uses natural language processing, to develop the chatbot. The research team works with teens and experts to conceptualize and design features to customize the interface of the chatbot and builds an educational program. The team partners with experts in cyber abuse and sex trafficking prevention to develop training materials and ensure that the conversational agent is safe for teens. This project research outcome will help the public understand how artificial intelligence can promote online safety.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.