After years of horrendous scandals, OpenAI has seemingly admitted that ChatGPT wasn’t safe for teenage users.
On Tuesday, the Sam Altman-led company rolled out an alternate version of the bot called “ChatGPT for Teens,” which is purportedly designed to help younger users “learn, think critically, deepen understanding, and use AI with confidence.”
The feature “provides stronger built-in safety protections for teens, including features to promote healthy use and additional controls for parents,” according to the company. OpenAI says that its system will “automatically” place users between the age of 13 and 17 into the new feature if it “estimates someone is under 18” — without ever explaining how it could come to such a conclusion. (Kids below the age of 13 are technically not allowed to use ChatGPT, though it’s easy to circumvent AI guardrails.)
As Business Insider‘s Joshua Nelken-Zitser quickly discovered, ChatGPT for Teens is failing pretty dismally at its goals at launch.
