OpenAI updates ChatGPT with teen safety rules as child exploitation reports surge 80-fold
9 Sources
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OpenAI's child exploitation reports increased sharply this year
OpenAI sent 80 times as many child exploitation incident reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children during the first half of 2025 as it did during a similar time period in 2024, according to a recent update from the company. The NCMEC's CyberTipline is a Congressionally
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OpenAI and Anthropic will start predicting when users are underage
OpenAI and Anthropic are making tweaks to their chatbots that they say will make them safer for teens. As OpenAI has updated its guidelines on how ChatGPT should interact with users between the ages of 13 and 17, Anthropic is working on a new way to identify if someone might be underage. On
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OpenAI: ChatGPT update designed to put teen safety first
OpenAI has faced enormous pressure in recent months to address concerns that its flagship product, ChatGPT, is unsafe for teens. The AI chatbot is at the heart of multiple wrongful death lawsuits alleging that it coached teens to take their own lives or didn't appropriately respond to their
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ChatGPT gets safety rules to protect teens and encourage human relations over virtual pals
ChatGPT gets new teen safety rules focused on prevention and transparency OpenAI has just updated its "Model Spec" - basically the rulebook for its AI - with a specific set of Under-18 (U18) Principles designed to change how ChatGPT talks to teenagers aged 13 to 17. The move is a clear admission
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New ChatGPT rules target self-harm and sexual role play
OpenAI published a blog post announcing an update to ChatGPT's Model Spec to enhance safety for users aged 13 to 17 amid wrongful-death lawsuits alleging the chatbot coached teens to suicide or failed to address suicidal expressions appropriately. The company has encountered substantial pressure
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OpenAI Is Willing to Nerf Its AI Models to Prioritise Teen Safety
OpenAI, on Thursday, announced that it is updating its Model Spec, its written guidelines that determine the development of an artificial intelligence (AI) model's behaviour. The update specifically addresses teenager safety, and the San Francisco-based AI giant wants to prioritise it over any
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OpenAI Updates Guidelines on Teen Usage Norms as More Policymakers Seek Safeguards
The model spec sheet claims that its sole purpose is to start a public debate on how AI models should behave Last week, OpenAI came out with updated guidelines on how its AI chatbots should behave with teenage users. It also published new literacy resources for both teens and their parents but did
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OpenAI and Anthropic Develop Enhanced Safety Tools for Protecting Teenage AI Users
OpenAI, Anthropic Roll Out Enhanced AI Protections Focused on Teen Safety As AI technology plays an increasingly prominent and integrated role in the adolescent experience each day. More teens are engaging with chatbot services and AI assistants than previously, to support learning, provide
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OpenAI and Anthropic working on new safety features to protect teen AI users
Anthropic is developing age-detection tools to identify underage users and restrict or disable accounts where necessary. OpenAI and Anthropic are now introducing new safety measures to make their AI chatbots safe for teenager use. This comes after the increased scrutiny from lawmakers and
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OpenAI reported 75,027 child exploitation incidents to NCMEC in the first half of 2025—an 80-fold increase from the same period in 2024. The company has introduced new Under-18 Principles in ChatGPT's Model Spec, establishing conversational guardrails for users aged 13 to 17. The update addresses self-harm and sexual role play while deploying an age prediction model to automatically apply safeguards for minors.
OpenAI child exploitation incident reports jump dramatically
OpenAI sent 75,027 child exploitation incident reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children during the first half of 2025, representing an 80-fold increase compared to 947 reports during the same period in 2024
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. The reports covered 74,559 pieces of content, up from 3,252 in early 2024. Companies are required by law to report apparent child exploitation to NCMEC's CyberTipline, a Congressionally authorized clearinghouse for reporting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other forms of child exploitation1
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Source: CXOToday
OpenAI spokesperson Gaby Raila attributed the surge to investments made toward the end of 2024 to increase capacity for reviewing and actioning reports, alongside "the introduction of more product surfaces that allowed image uploads and the growing popularity of our products"
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. In August, the company revealed that ChatGPT had four times the number of weekly active users compared to the previous year. The spike follows a broader pattern observed by NCMEC, which reported a 1,325 percent increase in generative AI-related reports between 2023 and 20241
.ChatGPT introduces Under-18 (U18) Principles for enhanced protection
Facing mounting regulatory pressure and multiple wrongful death lawsuits, OpenAI has updated ChatGPT's Model Spec with four new Under-18 (U18) Principles designed specifically for users aged 13 to 17
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. The company now commits to "put teen safety first, even when it may conflict with other goals," prioritizing prevention over maximum intellectual freedom when safety concerns arise3
. The framework aims to provide "stronger guardrails, safer alternatives, and encouragement to seek trusted offline support when conversations move into higher-risk territory"2
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Source: Mashable
The updated conversational guardrails activate when discussions involve self-harm and sexual role play, dangerous challenges, substance use, body image issues, or requests to keep secrets about unsafe behavior
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. ChatGPT will urge teens to contact emergency services or crisis resources when detecting signs of imminent risk2
. The American Psychological Association provided feedback on an early draft of the principles, with CEO Dr. Arthur C. Evans Jr. noting that "children and adolescents might benefit from AI tools if they are balanced with human interactions that science shows are critical for social, psychological, behavioral, and even biological development"3
.Age prediction model and automated safeguards for AI chatbots
OpenAI is deploying an age prediction model in its early stages that will attempt to estimate whether users are under 18 based on conversational patterns
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. When the system detects a potential minor, it will automatically apply teen safeguards. Adults falsely flagged by the system will have the opportunity to verify their age2
. Anthropic is implementing similar measures for Claude, developing technology capable of detecting "subtle conversational signs that a user might be underage" and disabling accounts confirmed to belong to users under 182
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Source: The Verge
These safeguards for AI chatbots extend across newer features including group chats, the ChatGPT Atlas browser, and the Sora video-generation app
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. OpenAI has also introduced parental controls allowing parents to link accounts with their teens, modify settings including voice mode and memory, remove image generation capabilities, and opt children out of model training1
. The company can notify parents if conversations show signs of self-harm and potentially alert law enforcement if an imminent threat to life is detected1
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Regulatory pressure intensifies around child safety issues
The changes arrive amid escalating scrutiny of child safety issues in AI products. During summer 2024, 44 state attorneys general sent a joint letter to OpenAI, Meta, Character.AI, and Google, warning they would "use every facet of our authority to protect children from exploitation by predatory artificial intelligence products"
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. Both OpenAI and Character.AI face multiple lawsuits from families alleging that chatbots contributed to their children's deaths, including the case of 16-year-old Adam Raine3
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.The US Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on AI chatbot harms in fall 2024, while the Federal Trade Commission launched a market study on AI companion bots examining how companies mitigate negative impacts, particularly to children
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. Child safety and mental health experts recently declared AI chatbots unsafe for teen discussions about mental health, prompting OpenAI to announce that ChatGPT-5.2 is "safer" for mental health conversations3
. OpenAI has also released two expert-vetted AI literacy guides for teens and parents3
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. The company emphasizes these protections represent a long-term project subject to ongoing refinement based on new research and feedback4
.References
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