OpenAI’s “ChatGPT for Teens” Is an “Unsafe” Mess, Testing Finds

Content warning: this story includes discussion of self-harm and suicide. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. OpenAI says its “ChatGPT for Teens” is safe for users aged 13 to 17. A new report found that it absolutely isn’t. A new report from the nonprofit Common Sense Media’s Youth AI Safety Institute found that guardrails in ChatGPT for Teens, a version of OpenAI’s flagship chatbot that the company says is designed to encourage a “focus on learning and even stronger built-in protections” for under-18 users, aren’t functioning as marketed — and as a result, the reviewers argue, the feature is “unsafe” and poses an “unacceptable risk” to teens.