New parental controls for one of the most popular generative AI chatbots on the web were rolled out Monday by OpenAI.
The company announced that controls for ChatGPT will be available to all users of the chatbot, allowing parents to link their account with their teen’s account and customize settings for a safe, age-appropriate experience.
The move comes while a lawsuit is pending in San Francisco Superior Court by the parents of Adam Raine, which alleges the 16-year-old boy committed suicide after being encouraged to do so by ChatGPT.
Here’s how the controls work:
To set them up, a parent or guardian sends an invite to their teen to connect accounts. After the teen accepts, the parent can manage the teen’s settings from their own account. Teens can also invite a parent to connect.
Once linked, parents can customize their teen’s experience in ChatGPT in a simple control page in the account settings. If a teen unlinks their account, their parent will be notified.
Along with the controls, OpenAI also introduced enhanced safeguards for linked teen accounts. Once parents and teens connect their accounts, the teen account will automatically get additional content protections, including reduced graphic content, viral challenges, sexual, romantic, or violent roleplay, and extreme beauty ideals.
Parents will have the option to turn those settings off, OpenAI explained, but teen users cannot make changes.
Core Features for Parents
Through a control page, parents will have access to these features:
- Set quiet hours, or specific times when ChatGPT can’t be used;
- Turn off voice mode to remove the option to use voice mode in ChatGPT;
- Turn off memory, so ChatGPT won’t save and use memories when responding;
- Remove image generation, so ChatGPT won’t have the ability to create or edit images; and
- Opt out of model training, so their teen’s conversations won’t be used to improve models powering ChatGPT.
“These parental controls are a good starting point for parents in managing their teen’s ChatGPT use,” Robbie Torney, senior director for AI Programs at Common Sense Media, said in a statement.
“Parental controls are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to keeping teens safe online, though,” he continued. “They work best when combined with ongoing conversations about responsible AI use, clear family rules about technology, and active involvement in understanding what their teen is doing online.”
Preventing Overreliance on AI
Alex Ambrose, a policy analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a research and public policy organization in Washington, D.C., maintained that parental controls are certainly a step in the right direction in addressing some of the children’s online safety issues with chatbots. “That’s especially true when parents have flexibility to choose the options that work best for them,” she told TechNewsWorld.
“At the same time, not every child lives in a home with parents willing or able to look out for their best interests online,” she said. “Even parents who have the time and skills to monitor their children’s use need tools to make that easier, which is why it’s great to see platforms implementing these types of systems.”
“OpenAI is signaling to the market that it cares about teen harm, which is a hot issue these days,” added Vasant Dhar, a professor at New York University and author of “Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI.”
“I think they are a good start,” he told TechNewsWorld. “If children know that their interactions are monitored, they are less likely to stray into trouble.”
Eric O’Neill, a former FBI counterintelligence operative and author of “Cybercrime: Cybersecurity Tactics to Outsmart Hackers and Disarm Scammers,” pointed out that parental controls give families a chance to set boundaries before AI becomes a crutch. “There is something magical to thinking of that first creative line in an essay without AI handing it to you,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“AI is powerful, but too much too soon can stifle a child’s ability to imagine, struggle, and create,” he said. “Parents must step in before kids outsource their ability to create. I worry for a future where there are no blank pages.”
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