Foundation Model for the Next Generation
A model that grows up with the child.
Children already talk to models every day. Models are beside them as they learn about everything from math and science to literature and friendship. Children are learning about the world with models, but today’s models were trained for adults. Safety guardrails are only a temporary measure: they prompt models not to say certain things rather than shaping what the models learn in the first place.
WalNut’s foundation model is different. We train it the other way around. The corpus is selected for children before training begins, so the model learns from reliable, age-appropriate material from the start. Its content then adapts to each child’s age.
The books a three- or four-year-old needs are different from those a seven- or eight-year-old needs. Children require different kinds of stimulation at different stages of cognitive development. Models for children should therefore generate content that reflects each child’s developmental stage.
The old assumption was that a model for children is simply an adult model with more restrictions. We believe a children’s model should be built for children from the start and trained on what a child at each age should actually be reading.