{"id":127513,"date":"2025-09-02T15:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/127513\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T15:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:27:07","slug":"openai-and-meta-say-theyre-fixing-ai-chatbots-to-better-respond-to-teens-in-distress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/127513\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI and Meta say they\u2019re fixing AI chatbots to better respond to teens in distress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Artificial intelligence chatbot makers OpenAI and Meta say they are adjusting how their chatbots respond to\u2026<\/p>\n<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Artificial intelligence chatbot makers OpenAI and Meta say they are adjusting how their chatbots respond to teenagers and other users asking questions about suicide or showing signs of mental and emotional distress. <\/p>\n<p>OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, said Tuesday it is preparing to <a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/index\/building-more-helpful-chatgpt-experiences-for-everyone\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">roll out new controls<\/a> enabling parents to link their accounts to their teen\u2019s account.<\/p>\n<p>Parents can choose which features to disable and \u201creceive notifications when the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress,\u201d according to a company blog post that says the changes will go into effect this fall. <\/p>\n<p>Regardless of a user\u2019s age, the company says its chatbots will redirect the most distressing conversations to more capable AI models that can provide a better response. <\/p>\n<p>EDITOR\u2019S NOTE \u2014 This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement comes a week after the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT coached the California boy in planning and taking his own life earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, also said it is now blocking its chatbots from talking with teens about self-harm, suicide, disordered eating and inappropriate romantic conversations, and instead directs them to expert resources. Meta already offers parental controls on teen accounts.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ai-chatbots-selfharm-chatgpt-claude-gemini-da00880b1e1577ac332ab1752e41225b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">study published last week<\/a> in the medical journal Psychiatric Services found inconsistencies in how three popular artificial intelligence chatbots responded to queries about suicide.<\/p>\n<p>The study by researchers at the RAND Corporation found a need for \u201cfurther refinement\u201d in ChatGPT, Google\u2019s Gemini and Anthropic\u2019s Claude. The researchers did not study Meta\u2019s chatbots. <\/p>\n<p>The study\u2019s lead author, Ryan McBain, said Tuesday that \u201cit\u2019s encouraging to see OpenAI and Meta introducing features like parental controls and routing sensitive conversations to more capable models, but these are incremental steps.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout independent safety benchmarks, clinical testing, and enforceable standards, we\u2019re still relying on companies to self-regulate in a space where the risks for teenagers are uniquely high,\u201d said McBain, a senior policy researcher at RAND. <\/p>\n<p>Copyright<br \/>\n                        \u00a9\u00a02025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Artificial intelligence chatbot makers OpenAI and Meta say they are adjusting how their chatbots&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-127513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}