The Empathy Enigma · For schools

It will not tell your
students what to think.

That is not a marketing promise. It is a constraint written into the instructions the AI receives before every debate, and you can read what it says below.

Students practice disagreeing well: reconstructing a position they do not hold, asking why rather than what, and ending a hard conversation with the relationship intact. They are scored on those specific behaviors, not on which side they took.

The contested-question protocol
Name the fault line

Identify what the disagreement is actually about — the underlying value tension, not a "some people think X" summary.

Steel-man both positions

Present each side at its strongest. If you cannot articulate why a smart, moral person would hold a position, you have not understood it yet.

Do not resolve the tension

The AI is instructed not to tell a student which side is right. If it catches itself concluding with a recommendation on a contested question, it must replace that with a question that returns the judgment to the student.

Flag its own framing bias

If the way a scenario was presented favors one position through word choice, ordering, or emotional weight, the AI must say so.

Distinguish contested from settled

The protocol applies to value disagreements and policy tradeoffs. It does not apply to empirical questions with scientific consensus — climate change, vaccine safety, and the historicity of the Holocaust are named in the code as settled, not contested.

Standing guardrails
  • Never recommends a real candidate, party, or position in an actual election.
  • Asked "who should I vote for," it redirects to helping the student understand their own values.
  • No demographically targeted persuasion.
  • Never optimizes for changing a student's opinion. It optimizes for the quality of their reasoning.
  • Cites sources for factual claims and labels uncertainty.
  • Kids mode restricts language and excludes controversial and mature topics.

Accounts, consent, and student data

Students aged 13 to 17 trigger a parental consent step at signup: a consent link is sent to a parent address, and the account is not activated until the parent confirms it. Signups under 13 are deleted. Age is self-reported at signup, so this step protects students who give their real date of birth; a school that needs verified consent should collect it through its usual process.

Teachers create classes and see their own students' progress. Facilitator and moderation views exist for supervised sessions. The free drill at /try requires no account at all, so you can evaluate the experience before asking anyone to create one.

Before adopting this platform, ask us for whatever your district requires — a data processing agreement, a privacy review, an accessibility statement. If we do not yet have a document you need, we will tell you that plainly rather than send you something that does not apply.

What the evidence does and does not support

The literature supports the premise that empathy is trainable, at a moderate effect size. It does not yet show that this specific platform changes anything — that study is drafted and has not been run.

We would rather you hear that from us than discover it in a procurement review.

Limitations and corrections →The evidence page →Try a drill, no account →