If wise people avoid problems by learning from the mistakes of others, then OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT update may be the wisest move the company has ever made.
Meta Platforms is in the news as the tech giant goes on trial over accusations that it purposely got teens and children addicted to its social media platforms. The company could potentially face over a trillion dollars in fines over the allegations.
Meta is accused of knowing that its platform was detrimental to teens’ mental health for years while it publicly espoused that the opposite was true.
On Aug. 18, OpenAI unveiled its plan to keep teens safe on its own platform while being at least somewhat honest about the potentially detrimental effects its large language model can have on young users.
While OpenAI has already faced lawsuits over teen deaths, including a case where ChatGPT allegedly advised a teen to take his own life, it is at least using this opportunity to tighten up its own liability.
OpenAI childproofs ChatGPT
On Aug. 18, OpenAI revealed it is making extensive changes to ChatGPT in order to keep teens and young people from harming themselves through its platform.
In its announcement, the company recognized that students today will be the first generation to grow up with artificial intelligence as an everyday part of life. And it says it recognizes the responsibility that places on OpenAI.
Related: OpenAl is reinventing ChatGPT to justify its $1 trillion IPO
According to OpenAI, while the vast majority of students are using AI in the classroom, only 16% of high school leaders say that all of their students are learning the technical knowledge to understand it.
So, in addition to starting partnerships with CodeAI to help students and educators better understand ChatGPT, OpenAI announced the launch of ChatGPT for Teens, which the company describes as “a dedicated experience designed with learning at the center to help teens think critically, deepen understanding, and use AI with confidence.”
What changes does ChatGPT for Teens make?
ChatGPT for Teens will be just like the original platform, except for the built-in mechanisms that OpenAI says will help protect kids.
Those mechanisms include features that will give parents more control over the experience and more guidance for the teens on how to use the technology safely.
“Parents and educators want young people to be ready for a future shaped by AI—and they are right to expect that to come with care,” Dr. Allison Mishkin, Head of Child Development, OpenAI, said in the company announcement.
“Our goal is not simply to help more students use AI, but to help them ask better questions, think critically about the answers they receive, and use these tools responsibly,” Mishkin continued. “We look forward to working alongside CodeAI, parents, and educators to learn, improve, and help young people build those skills.”
More AI:
- Nvidia just made a move Wall Street wasn’t ready for
- Microsoft just took sides in AI policy fight
- OpenAI just disclosed something genuinely alarming
Those features include “study mode,” which uses “guiding questions, scaffolding, metacognitive prompts, and knowledge checks” to make sure students aren’t using ChatGPT to just cheat.
ChatGPT for Teens also features homework reminders, quizzes, learning visualizations and “study hours” where parents can make study mode a default for however long the feature is on.
OpenAI says it will also share more of its safeguarding work publicly, starting with new under-18 evaluations that they’ve added to its system cards that show how its models perform against teen-specific standards in “challenging sensitive-content cases.”
Meta in spotlight over lack of teen controls
OpenAI may have been planning to roll these features out this week for a while, but the timing of the announcement is noteworthy considering AI rival Meta is going to trial this week over its own child-related issues.
Four states – California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey – are seeking up to $1.4 trillion in penalties against Meta, which they claim violated consumer protection laws, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Meta’s last-ditch effort to stop the trial was rejected last week by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Meta did not have the “immunity” from liability its defense asserted under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Meta contends that the district court’s denial of its Section 230 immunity is immediate grounds for appeal should it lose the trial.
“On the eve of trial, Meta has resorted to seeking an emergency stay in the appellate courts. Meta’s latest effort to get out of taking accountability has failed — again,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2023.
Meta filed a motion to dismiss in 2024 that was rejected and also attempted to obtain a summary judgment in June that would have terminated the lawsuit.
What is Meta accused of doing?
Back in 2023, a coalition of 33 attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that Meta “designed and deployed harmful features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children and teens to their mental and physical detriment.”
According to Bonta, “Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits.”
The lawsuit claims that Meta created a business model “focused on maximizing young users’ time on its platforms” while it also used “harmful and psychologically manipulative” features to keep them addicted. It also claims that Meta misled the public about the safety of those features.
According to the lawsuit, those harmful and psychologically manipulative features include:
- Dopamine-manipulating recommendation algorithms.
- “Likes” and social comparison features known by Meta to harm young users.
- Audiovisual and haptic alerts that incessantly recall young users to Meta platforms.
- Visual filter features that promote body dysmorphia.
- Infinite scrolling designed to discourage users’ ability to self-regulate.
For its part, Meta says the case misrepresents the lengths the company goes to to protect children on its platform.
“We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content,” Meta said.
“We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts,” the company stated.
