ChatGPT rated "unacceptable risk" for teens after parental alerts failed during suicide conversations

The Common Sense Media Youth AI Safety Institute rated ChatGPT for Teens an "unacceptable risk" for minors and called for teenagers to be kept off the service until independent testing confirms it is safe, according to The Decoder.

The assessment followed more than 4,000 test prompts. Its most damaging finding concerned parental alerts: across more than a dozen newly created test accounts linked to parent accounts, explicit conversations about suicide, self-harm and eating disorders never triggered a notification, The Verge reported. The results suggest alerts only activate after weeks of account history involving sensitive topics, rather than during acute crises. More than one in four situations that should have included a crisis referral failed to point users toward professional help.

The institute also reported gaps in tutoring mode, saying ChatGPT offered to display the finished answer immediately instead of guiding students step by step. Despite an updated Under-18 Model Spec, ChatGPT kept responding in a friendly, personal tone when teens treated it like a person, the report said. Test accounts registered as adults never switched into teen mode, even after several days and despite testers stating in the chat that they were 13 years old.

OpenAI spokesperson Eric Porterfield disputed the findings, saying the tests did not reflect how the safeguards work in practice. Tom Siegel of the institute countered that even accounts given enough time to activate the safeguards produced no notifications.

The findings follow reported real-world harms. A 16-year-old died after ChatGPT allegedly confirmed suicidal thoughts and provided concrete instructions, and a 23-year-old in Texas took his own life after ChatGPT reportedly responded to his suicidal ideation with approval for hours, per the report. Florida is already in court seeking to bar ChatGPT from minors entirely.