ChatGPT to introduce parental controls following teen’s death 

ChatGPT will introduce new parental controls able to detect “acute distress” after a family alleged the chatbot encouraged their son to take his own life.

OpenAI, parent company of ChatGPT, said the raft of new security features will help the platform to be in line with “healthy guidelines that fit a teen’s unique stage of development”.

Within the next month, the new system will allow parents to receive notifications when the system detects their child is in "acute distress”, among other features. The company said experts will guide the alert system to “support trust between parents and teens”.

The new guardrails come as more young people turn to AI chatbots for mental health support and advice. Last week, a California couple filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of negligence and wrongful death after their son Adam Raine took his life. 

The 16-year-old killed himself in April after discussing suicide with ChatGPT, and his parents Matt and Maria Raine argue the chatbot validated his “most harmful and self-destructive thoughts”.

Under the new controls, parents will also be able to link their children’s account to their own, disable some features including memory and chat history, and control how the platform engages with their kids via “age-appropriate model behaviour rules”. 

OpenAI said these features were “only the beginning”, with further updates to come over the next 120 days on how models will be improved to better “recognise and respond to signs of mental and emotional distress”.