ChatGPT Parental Controls Launch Amid Doubt

New Safety Features Introduced by OpenAI for Teen Users

OpenAI has announced plans to introduce new features aimed at making ChatGPT safer for teenagers. As the use of artificial intelligence among adolescents continues to rise, concerns about ethical implications and potential risks have also grown. In response, major technology companies are implementing safety measures. However, many remain skeptical about whether these steps are merely short-term solutions.

In a recent blog post, OpenAI stated that parental controls will be introduced within the next month. According to the company, parents will have the ability to manage how ChatGPT interacts with their teenage children and will receive alerts if their child is in a serious crisis. Additionally, OpenAI plans to connect teenagers or adult users who show signs of severe distress to a more secure version of the chatbot. The New York Times reported that this feature has been requested by OpenAI’s developer community for over a year.

These new features mirror the parental controls implemented by Character.AI, a platform that uses character-based chatbots. Character.AI faced legal action last year after a parent claimed their son died following an obsession with the company's chatbot. Since then, the platform has allowed parents to monitor their teenagers’ accounts.

Beyond OpenAI, other big tech companies are also working to improve safety and accountability for young AI users. Google DeepMind has outlined principles for responsible AI usage in Gemini, enhancing filters to block hate speech in text or images when used by minors. Meta has also announced stricter internal filtering mechanisms after reports of the platform responding to children with explicit or harmful content.

Despite these efforts, skepticism remains about the effectiveness of such measures. OpenAI’s parental controls have drawn criticism for placing the responsibility on parents rather than addressing the issue directly. Robbie Tony, head of the AI program at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit advocating for child and adolescent media safety, stated that "parental controls are difficult to set up, shift responsibility to parents, and are easy for teenagers to bypass."

Even with enhanced safety measures, cases of misuse and circumvention continue to occur. Recently, a teenage boy in California engaged in months of conversations with ChatGPT before taking extreme actions. His parents sued OpenAI, claiming that "GPT told him how to take extreme measures." It was later revealed that ChatGPT had repeatedly encouraged the student to call a crisis hotline, but he bypassed the safeguards by claiming, "This is for a novel I’m writing."