OpenAI is facing fresh scrutiny over the safety of ChatGPT for teenagers after Common Sense Media said some of the chatbot’s new protections do not work as promised.
The nonprofit’s Youth AI Safety Institute tested ChatGPT for Teens and concluded that the service still presents an “unacceptable risk” to young users. It is calling on OpenAI to restrict the chatbot to adults until stronger safeguards are in place.
The findings come less than two months after OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens with additional safeguards, parental controls and tools intended to encourage healthier use of AI.
ChatGPT Passes Some Teen Safety Tests but Falls Short in Key Areas
Common Sense Media said its evaluation used more than 4,000 prompts through test accounts representing users between 13 and 17 years old. The responses were reviewed by child-development and medical experts, including child psychiatrists and a pediatrician.
The watchdog found that some protections worked as intended. For example, ChatGPT was generally able to reject requests for explicit sexual role-play. However, the organization said other safeguards were less reliable. It raised concerns about how ChatGPT responds to conversations involving self-harm, suicide and eating disorders.
The group also questioned whether the chatbot consistently maintains an appropriate boundary between an AI system and a human relationship.
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ChatGPT Faces Questions Over Teen Mental Health Safety
One of the main concerns involves situations where teenagers discuss sensitive mental health issues. Common Sense Media said its testing found problems with safety alerts related to topics such as suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. In some cases, the alerts did not appear as quickly as the watchdog expected.
This is important because OpenAI’s teen safety system is supposed to identify higher-risk situations and, in limited circumstances, notify a parent or guardian. OpenAI says its teen protections cover areas including self-harm, violence, eating disorders, dangerous activities and explicit sexual or graphic content.
OpenAI Pushes Back on ChatGPT Teen Safety Evaluation
OpenAI has pushed back against the evaluation. The company said the testing may have taken place before all parental controls were fully enabled or before some systems had reached their current state. OpenAI also questioned aspects of the watchdog’s testing methodology.
OpenAI maintains that teen safety is a major focus of its product design. When ChatGPT identifies an account as belonging to someone under 18, it can automatically apply the ChatGPT for Teens experience.
The company uses age information and age-prediction technology to determine whether an account should receive the additional protections.
The company also says parents can receive safety notifications in certain high-risk situations. Common Sense Media’s findings suggest that having these protections in place does not necessarily mean they will perform reliably in every conversation.
OpenAI Says Teens Spend Less Than 15 Minutes on ChatGPT
The safety debate comes as OpenAI has also released its first report on how teenagers use ChatGPT. According to OpenAI, teens spend less than 15 minutes per day on ChatGPT on average. The company said fewer than 2% of teen users spend more than three consecutive hours using the chatbot.
OpenAI also said nearly half of users either take a break or end their session after receiving break reminders. Watchdogs, however, argue that average usage figures do not tell the full story.
Heavy users and teenagers who turn to AI during vulnerable moments may face different risks from the average user. That makes the effectiveness of individual safety features more important than simply measuring overall usage time.
AI Teen Safety Debate Grows as Chatbot Use Expands
The dispute reflects a larger debate over how AI companies should protect children and teenagers. Chatbots are increasingly being used for homework, emotional support, advice and everyday conversations.
That creates different safety challenges from traditional search engines because AI systems respond directly to users and can maintain long conversations. OpenAI says nearly nine in 10 teens using ChatGPT use it for learning, information, skill-building or productivity during a typical week.
The company argues that blocking teenagers from AI until adulthood would prevent them from learning how to use an important technology safely. Critics say access should come only when companies can demonstrate that the systems are safe enough for younger users.
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OpenAI Faces Pressure to Prove ChatGPT Teen Safeguards Work
The latest criticism puts more pressure on OpenAI to show that its teen protections work outside controlled demonstrations. The company has already said its teen safety work is ongoing and that it plans to improve safeguards as it learns more from parents, experts and young users.
For parents and educators, the key issue is whether these protections can consistently respond to high-risk conversations before a teenager is exposed to further harm. The Common Sense Media assessment does not prove that ChatGPT will cause harm to teenagers. But it highlights a gap between the safeguards AI companies promise and how those safeguards may perform in real conversations.
As ChatGPT becomes more widely used by younger people, independent testing is likely to remain an important part of the debate over whether AI chatbots are ready for teenagers.
