Content warning: This article includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, help is available from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (US), Crisis Services Canada (CA), Samaritans (UK), Lifeline (AUS), and other hotlines.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said in a new blogpost that the company's main product, the large language model (LLM) ChatGPT, will have a renewed focus on separating out users under 18 from adults—and will no longer get flirty with teens, or discuss suicide with them. The news comes as the US Senate holds hearings focused on the potential harms of AI chatbots, and after two parents brought a lawsuit against OpenAI and ChatGPT for, they allege, encouraging their son to take his own life and providing instructions on how to do so.
