ChatGPT for Teens 'Unacceptable Risk': What Tests Found
OpenAI built a safety net for teenagers, then let it fail in the exact scenario it was designed for. For up to an hour, testers talked openly to ChatGPT about suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders — and the parent alerts that were supposed to fire never did. Not once. This week, the nonprofit that ran the tests gave ChatGPT for Teens the lowest rating on its scale: "Unacceptable Risk." The assessment comes from Common Sense Media's Youth AI Safety Institute, and it lands like a gut punch precisely because OpenAI did everything right on paper. The teen mode, launched August 18, was supposed to be the grown-up answer to a year of scandals: stronger built-in protections, parental alerts for self-harm chats, a Study Mode parents could control, and a hard line against the chatbot acting like a friend. The testing says the protections exist — and frequently don't work. As the Institute's executive director, Tom Siegel, put it in the group's press release: ...