Watchdog Rates ChatGPT for Teens an Unacceptable Risk

Common Sense Media’s Youth AI Safety Institute has rated OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Teens an “Unacceptable Risk” for users under 18, urging the company to restrict teen access or marketing until its safeguards are improved and tested. OpenAI disputes whether the institute’s tests reflected parental controls that were fully activated. The institute said it tested more than 4,000 prompts on accounts registered to 13-to-17-year-olds, with responses reviewed by child-health experts. Its report identified gaps in referrals for crisis support, parental alerts, age detection and study features. The findings describe the institute’s simulated tests and do not establish how often such failures occur in teens’ everyday use. In cases reviewers judged to warrant a crisis referral, more than one in four did not receive a reliable recommendation to seek professional help or a hotline, the institute said. It also reported that newly created, parent-linked accounts sometimes discussed suicide, self-harm or disordered eating for up to an hour without triggering an alert. In its tests, alerts appeared only on older accounts with weeks of sensitive-topic conversation history.