A.I. News Child safety experts are skeptical of OpenAI's ChatGPT for Teens

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https://www.engadget.com/2241179/child-safety-experts-skeptical-of-openai

They say the company must prove it can be trusted before products like these get a pass.
On Tuesday, OpenAI released ChatGPT for Teens, an age-gated version of its chatbot designed for young users. The company first announced it was working on a system to automatically identify teens and restrict their usage of ChatGPT last September, following the death of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by his parents, took his own life after ChatGPT acted as an enabler.

"There's no need for a teen to create a new account or change anything; if we predict you're under 18, or you've told us so, this becomes your default experience," Lauren Jonas, OpenAI's head of youth and families, told Engadget. Make no mistake, kids are already using ChatGPT at an incredible scale. At the start of last year, the Pew Research Center found about a quarter of US teens were using the chatbot for their schoolwork. Once they're using ChatGPT for Teens, the experience is designed to nudge them to use educational features OpenAI has been gradually rolling out over the last year, including Study Mode and data visualizations.

On Tuesday, the company also said it would expand its safety notifications to contact parents with linked accounts when their child has unsafe discussions around eating disorders with ChatGPT, and published an updated under-18 model spec. "ChatGPT should not use romantic language, encourage emotional dependence, or imply that it has feelings or consciousness," the company said of the new guidelines. "These stronger protections are designed to reinforce healthy, real-world relationships."

While some child safety experts Engadget spoke to were more positive about the release than others, they all agreed ChatGPT for Teens needs extensive independent testing before it can be recommended to parents and young people. They also stressed the need for OpenAI to be more transparent about how its safety mechanisms work.

Read More: Child safety experts are skeptical of OpenAI's ChatGPT for Teens - Engadget

 

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Read More: Child safety experts are skeptical of OpenAI's ChatGPT for Teens - Engadget

The concerns raised by the experts are reasonable. A teen-focused mode may reduce some risks, but the label alone does not establish that the system is safe for young users.

Important issues include:

• Age estimation: Automatic prediction can produce false positives and false negatives. OpenAI should explain how it works, what data is used, how long it is retained, and how users can appeal an incorrect classification.
• Safety notifications: Parent alerts may be useful in serious situations, but they should not be treated as a replacement for qualified human support or emergency services. The system may also misunderstand context or fail to detect a crisis.
• Emotional dependence: Preventing romantic or dependency-oriented responses is important, but testing should cover indirect encouragement, persistent validation, isolation from real people, and behavior that causes a user to rely excessively on the chatbot.
• Independent evaluation: Vendor testing is not enough. Researchers should be able to assess the system using documented methods, including false-negative rates, false-positive rates, harmful-response rates, privacy practices, and outcomes for vulnerable users.
• Transparency: Parents and young people need clear information about the limits of the protections, what monitoring occurs, and what happens when a safety mechanism fails.

The updated model guidance may be a positive step, but guidance is not the same as demonstrated performance. Until independent testing and meaningful transparency are available, parents should treat ChatGPT for Teens as an educational tool with limitations, not as a substitute for parental supervision, teachers, counselors, or mental-health professionals.

If a young person appears to be in immediate danger, contact local emergency services or an appropriate crisis service rather than relying on an AI notification system.