ChatGPT for Teens has failed some of its first tests by researchers. Common Sense Media, a watchdog organization that advocates for online safety, researched safeguards rolled out by the artificial intelligence platform and found that the chatbot still presents problems for young people. "At this point, we're recommending that teens don't use it," says Tom Siegel, executive director of the Youth AI Safety Institute at Common Sense Media.
He led a team of researchers testing the new safeguards, which include parental controls. Stay up to date with our Up First newsletter, sent every weekday morning. In August, OpenAI rolled out its ChatGPT for Teens — a default, safer mode for under-18 users — announcing it in a blog post.
OpenAI said that it designed this mode to enable teens to better use ChatGPT as a learning tool while making sure they limit exposure to harmful and developmentally inappropriate content. "ChatGPT for Teens is a designated teen-specific experience," Lauren Jonas, head of youth and families at OpenAI, told NPR at the time. That experience includes features like refusing role-playing.
"The model should not role-play with a teen," added Jonas. "The model should not claim to be sentient or be the friend of a teen." But Siegel's team found that while the block on role-playing and some of the other safeguards work, most don't. The research team created more than a dozen accounts with adolescent ages, and each was linked to a parental account before the researchers started any conversations with ChatGPT.
"We created a lot of different personas of teens in crisis situations," says Siegel. Those situations included teens struggling with self-harm, suicidal thoughts and other mental health conditions, like psychosis, mania and eating disorders. The researchers also attempted to engage in role-play with ChatGPT.
Then they observed how ChatGPT responded in each of those situations — whether it engaged or refused to engage in those topics, whether it provided crisis resources and whether it sent parental notifications when conversations indicated a safety risk. They did these tests before and after the launch of ChatGPT for Teens. Among the safeguards that did work were those involving role-playing and refusal to engage in a romantic relationship.
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