OpenAI Launches Parental Control On ChatGPT Following Californian Youth Suicide Case

OpenAI has started rolling out parental controls for ChatGPT on the web and mobile (photo: x @WBuzzer)

JAKARTA - OpenAI began rolling out parental controls for ChatGPT on the web and mobile on Monday 29 September. This was done, following a lawsuit from the parents of a teenager who died from suicide after a chatbot from the artificial intelligence company allegedly trained him on the self-injury method.

The Microsoft-backed company says the controls allow parents and teens to enable stronger protection by linking their accounts. Parental control will only be active if one party sends an invitation and the other receives it.

Under these new steps, parents can:

Reduce exposure to sensitive content.

Control whether ChatGPT remembers previous conversations.

Decide whether conversations can be used to train OpenAI models.

Fix quiet hours (silent hours) that block access for a certain time.

Deactivating sound mode (voice mode) as well as creating and editing images.

However, the company added, parents would not have access to the youth chat transcript.

OpenAI states that in rare cases where a trained system and observer detects signs of serious safety risks, parents can be notified only with the information needed to support the safety of teens. Parents will also be notified if a teenager releases the account link.

OpenAI, which has about 700 million weekly active users for its ChatGPT products, is building an age prediction system to help it predict whether a user is under 18 years of age, so chatbots can automatically implement appropriate settings for teens.

The move comes amid increased US regulatory oversight of AI companies over the potential negative impact of chatbots. In August, Reuters reported how Meta's AI rules allowed genital conversations with children.

Following this, Meta also announced new protection for teens on its AI products last month, by training the system to avoid genital conversations and discussions about self-harm or suicide with minors, as well as temporarily limiting access to certain AI characters.