OpenAI says it will soon introduce parental controls for ChatGPT as concerns grow about the chatbot’s influence on teenagers, following a lawsuit that linked it to a 16-year-old’s suicide.
In a blog post on Tuesday, the company said the new features are meant to help families create “healthy guidelines” suited to a child’s age. Parents will be able to connect their accounts with their children’s, disable chat history and memory, set age-appropriate behavior rules, and receive alerts if a child shows signs of distress. OpenAI added that the rollout will begin within a month and that it plans to work closely with child psychologists and mental health experts to expand the safeguards.
The move comes after Matt and Maria Raine filed a lawsuit in California accusing OpenAI of playing a role in their son Adam’s death. The suit claims ChatGPT fueled his darkest thoughts, calling the outcome the “predictable result of deliberate design choices.” Their lawyer, Jay Edelson, dismissed the parental controls as an attempt to deflect blame, arguing the issue is not about usefulness but about a product that “actively coached a teenager to suicide.”
The case has sharpened debate over the risks of using AI chatbots as emotional support tools. A recent study in Psychiatric Services found that ChatGPT and other leading AI models often gave appropriate guidance in high-risk suicide scenarios but were inconsistent when dealing with moderate-risk cases. Researchers warned that these systems need further refinement before they can be trusted in sensitive mental health situations.
