OPENAI PLANS TO ADD SAFEGUARDS FOR TEENS AND OTHERS

ChatGPT is smart, human-like and available 24/7. That has attracted 700 million users, some of whom are leaning on it for emotional support.

- KASHMIR HILL

But the artificially intelligent chatbot is not a therapist — it's a very sophisticated word prediction machine, powered by maths — and there have been disturbing cases in which it has been linked to delusional thinking and violent outcomes.

Last week, US couple Matt and Maria Raine of California sued OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, after their 16-year-old son ended his life after months in which he discussed his plans with ChatGPT.

OpenAI said it planned to introduce new features intended to make its chatbot safer, including parental controls, "within the next month". Parents, according to an OpenAI post, will be able to "control how ChatGPT responds to their teen" and "receive notifications when the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress".

This is a feature that OpenAI's developer community has been requesting for more than a year.