Age verification and parental controls coming to ChatGPT to protect teens

OpenAI is planning to predict user ages to enhance teen safety, with a long-term system to determine whether users are over 18; if an adult cannot be verified, ChatGPT will eventually offer a different chat experience. According to OpenAI, the model should respond differently to a 15-year-old than to an adult, and Altman discussed balancing teen protection with user freedom in blog posts. The company says it may contact a teen’s parents, and possibly authorities if a teen seems likely to harm themselves imminently.

Parental controls are to be available by the end of the month, enabling parents to link their teens’ accounts, guide how ChatGPT responds, disable features such as memory and chat history, set blackout hours and receive alerts if a teen is in distress. Altman also suggested that ID authentication might be required in some cases or countries, a privacy compromise considered a worthy tradeoff.