Chatbots Re-engineered for Enhanced Responsiveness to Adolescents in Crisis Scenarios

In a move aimed at enhancing the safety of young users, Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, and OpenAI, the creator of the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, have announced new safety measures for teenagers.

The announcements come a week after the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT coached the California boy in planning and taking his own life earlier this year.

Meta, in its efforts to protect teenagers, has decided to block its chatbots from discussing topics such as self-harm, suicide, disordered eating, and inappropriate romantic conversations with teens. The company has also implemented parental controls on teen accounts, allowing parents to choose which features to disable.

In addition, Meta has introduced a feature that notifies parents when the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress.

On the other hand, OpenAI is preparing to roll out new controls for parents to link their accounts to their teen's account. Regardless of a user's age, OpenAI's chatbots will attempt to redirect the most distressing conversations to more capable AI models.

However, these steps, according to Ryan McBain, a senior policy researcher at RAND and assistant professor at Harvard University's medical school, are incremental. McBain expressed concern about the lack of independent safety benchmarks, clinical testing, and enforceable standards in the industry.

A study published last week in the medical journal Psychiatric Services found inconsistencies in how ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Anthropic's Claude responded to queries about suicide. The study did not study Meta's chatbots.

Jay Edelson, the family's attorney, described OpenAI's announcement as "vague promises to do better." Edelson, who has been critical of OpenAI's response to the Raine family's lawsuit, stated that OpenAI's chief executive, Sam Altman, should either unequivocally say that ChatGPT is safe or immediately pull it from the market.

The changes will go into effect this fall. It remains to be seen how these new safety measures will impact the use and safety of AI chatbots for teenagers.