OpenAI Introduces Parental Controls for ChatGPT, Enhancing Teen Safety

OpenAI is rolling out parental controls and a new parent resource page to help families guide how ChatGPT works in their homes. Available to all ChatGPT users starting today, parental controls allow parents to link their account with their teen’s account and customize settings for a safe, age-appropriate experience. This is part of OpenAI's ongoing effort to make ChatGPT helpful for everyone, and to give families tools to support their teens’ use of AI. Parental controls are an important step in giving parents the ability to control their teen’s experience with ChatGPT. To set up parental controls, 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 account settings. If a teen unlinks their account, their parent will be notified. As part of parental controls, OpenAI is rolling out 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, to help keep their experience age-appropriate. Parents will have the option to turn this setting off if they choose, but teen users cannot make changes. From a simple control page, parents can also set quiet hours, turn off voice mode, turn off memory, remove image generation, and opt out of model training for their teen's account. These settings are optional and flexible so families can choose what works best for them. OpenAI has added protections that help ChatGPT recognize potential signs that a teen might be thinking about harming themselves. If their systems detect potential harm, a small team of specially trained people reviews the situation. If there are signs of acute distress, OpenAI will contact parents by email, text message and push alert on their phone, unless they have opted out. Over the coming months, OpenAI is building an age prediction system that will help them predict whether a user is under 18 so that ChatGPT can automatically apply teen-appropriate settings. In instances where they’re unsure of a user’s age, they’ll take the safer route and apply teen settings proactively. In the meantime, parental controls will be the most effective way for parents to ensure their teens are opted into their age-appropriate teen experience.