The American company OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it will implement parental controls for its ChatGPT artificial intelligence tool following accusations that the platform encouraged a teenager to take his own life.
In a blog post, OpenAI stated that “within the next month, parents will be able to link their accounts with their teenager’s account” and “set rules for how ChatGPT responds to their adolescent.”
Parents will also have the option to receive alerts if signs of “acute distress” are detected during their child’s conversations and will be able to adjust account settings, according to the company.
This announcement came after OpenAI’s previous blog post in late August, where the company revealed it was developing a parental control mechanism. The decision follows a lawsuit filed by the parents of a 16-year-old Californian boy who died by suicide. The parents allege that ChatGPT provided their son with detailed instructions on ending his life and encouraged the act.
“We continue to improve how our models recognise and respond to signs of mental and emotional distress,” OpenAI added in its Tuesday statement.
The company noted that additional safety measures will be implemented within the next 120 days. Among these changes, OpenAI plans to redirect certain “sensitive conversations” to advanced reasoning models like GPT-5-thinking. “Reasoning models more consistently follow and apply safety instructions,” the company explained.
