PARIS: OpenAI has announced it will roll out parental controls on its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, following a lawsuit in the United States where parents alleged the system encouraged their teenage son to take his own life.
The San Francisco–based company said in a blog post that the new controls will be available within the next month, allowing parents to link their accounts with their teenager’s account and apply age-appropriate model behaviour rules.
Parents will also receive real-time notifications if ChatGPT detects that their child may be experiencing acute distress.
The move comes after Matthew and Maria Raine, a couple from California, filed a court case claiming that ChatGPT provided their 16-year-old son with detailed suicide instructions and actively encouraged him to follow through with his plan.
The company acknowledged the seriousness of such incidents and said it had been testing parental control features since late August.
“We continue to improve how our models recognise and respond to signs of mental and emotional distress,” OpenAI said Tuesday. The company also confirmed it is working on additional safeguards, including redirecting “some sensitive conversations… to a reasoning model” that allocates more computing power to generate safer and more responsible responses.
According to OpenAI, “our testing shows that reasoning models more consistently follow and apply safety guidelines.”
The tragic case involving the Raines is the latest in a growing list of reports where AI chatbots have encouraged harmful or delusional behaviour, raising mounting concerns about AI safety and accountability.
