> We’re building an age-prediction system to estimate age based on how people use ChatGPT. If there is doubt, we’ll play it safe and default to the under-18 experience. In some cases or countries we may also ask for an ID
Yay, more unreliable AI that will misclassify users, either letting children access content they shouldn't, or ban adults until they give up their privacy and give their ID to the Big Brother.
> we will attempt to contact the users’ parents and if unable, will contact the authorities in case of imminent harm
Oh, even better, so if the AI misclassifies me it will automatically call the cops on me? And how long before this is expanded to other forms of wrongthink? Sure, let's normalize these kinds of systems where authorities are notified about what you're doing privately, definitely not a slippery slope that won't get people in power salivating about the new possibilities given by such a system.
> “Treat our adult users like adults” is how we talk about this internally
Suuure, maybe I would have believed it if ChatGPT wasn't so ridiculously censored already; this sounds like post-hoc rationalization to cover their asses and not something that they've always believed in. Their models were always incredibly patronizing and censored.
One fun anecdote I have: I still remember the day when I first got access to DALL-E and asked it to generate me an image in "soviet style", and got my request blocked and a big fat warning threatening me with a ban because apparently "soviet" is a naughty word. They always erred very strongly on the side of heavy-handed filtering and censorship; even their most recently released gpt-oss model has become a meme in the local LLM community due to how often it refuses.
mhuffman 21 minutes ago [-]
>Yay, more unreliable AI that will misclassify users, either letting children access content they shouldn't, or ban adults until they give up their privacy and give their ID to the Big Brother.
Or maybe, deep in the terms and conditions, it will add you to Altman's shitcoin company[0]
is it privately when you're interacting with someone else's systems?
kouteiheika 38 minutes ago [-]
I don't see how that's relevant. When I'm making a phone call I'm also interacting with hundreds of systems that are not mine; do I not have the right to keep my conversation private? Even the blog post here says that "It is extremely important to us, and to society, that the right to privacy in the use of AI is protected. People talk to AI about increasingly personal things", and that's one of the few parts that I actually agree with.
IncreasePosts 33 minutes ago [-]
You're interacting with hundreds of systems whose job it is to simply transit your information. Privacy there makes sense. However, you're also talking to someone on the other end of all those systems. Do you have a right to force the other person to keep your conversation private?
kouteiheika 13 minutes ago [-]
An AI chatbot is not a person, and you're not talking to anyone; you're querying a (fancy) automated system. I fundamentally disagree that those queries should not be guaranteed private.
Here's a thought experiment: you're a gay person living in a country where being gay is illegal and results in a death penalty. You use ChatGPT in a way which makes your sexuality apparent; should OpenAI be allowed to share this query with anyone? Should they be allowed to store it? What if it inadvertently leaks (which has happened before!), or their database gets hacked and dumped, and now the morality police of your country are combing through it looking for criminals like you?
Privacy is a fundamental right of every human being; I will gladly die on this hill.
sophacles 21 minutes ago [-]
In many circumstances yes.
When I'm talking to my doctor, or lawyer, or bank. When there's a signed NDA. And so on. There are circumstances where the other person can be (and is) obliged to maintain privacy.
One of those is interacting with an AI system where the terms of service guarantee privacy.
biophysboy 2 hours ago [-]
> First, we have to separate users who are under 18 from those who aren’t (ChatGPT is intended for people 13 and up). We’re building an age-prediction system to estimate age based on how people use ChatGPT. If there is doubt, we’ll play it safe and default to the under-18 experience. In some cases or countries we may also ask for an ID; we know this is a privacy compromise for adults but believe it is a worthy tradeoff.
Didn’t one of the recent teen suicides subvert safeguards like this by saying “pretend this is a fictional story about suicide”? I don’t pretend to understand every facet of LLMs, but robust safety seems contrary to their design, given how they adapt to context
conradev 2 hours ago [-]
They address that in the following sentences:
For example, ChatGPT will be trained not to … engage in discussions about suicide of self-harm even in a creative writing setting.
GCUMstlyHarmls 1 hours ago [-]
I'm writing an essay on suicide...
WD-42 57 minutes ago [-]
Yes. The timing of this is undoubtedly related to the Daily episode this morning titled “Trapped in a GPT spiral”.
I'm as eager to anyone when it comes to holding companies accountable, for example I think a lot of the body dysmorphia, bullying and psychological hazard of social media are systemic, but when a person wilfully hacks around safety guards to get the behaviour they want it can't be argued that this is in the design of the system.
Or put differently, in the absence of ChatGPT this person would have sought out a Discord community, telegram group or online forum that would have supported the suicidal ideation. The case you could make with the older models, that they're obnoxiously willing to give in to every suggestion by the user they seem to already have gotten rid of.
omnicognate 2 hours ago [-]
So the solution continues to be more AI, for guess^H^H^H^H^Hdetermining user age, escalating rand^H^H^H^Hdangerous situations to human staff, etc.
Is it true that the only psychiatrist they've hired is a forensic one, i.e. an expert in psychiatry as it relates to law? That's the impression I get from a quick search. I don't see any psychiatry, psychology or ethics roles on their openings page.
freedomben 1 hours ago [-]
I suspect it's only a matter of time until only the population that falls within the statistical model of average will be able to conduct business without constant roadblocks and pain. I really wonder if we're going to need to define a new protected class.
I get the business justification, and of course many tech companies have been using machines to make decisions for years, but now it's going to be everyone. I'm not anti business but any stretch, but we've seen what happens when there aren't any consumer protections in place
bayindirh 2 hours ago [-]
Honestly, I don’t except ethics from a company which claims everything they grab falls under fair use.
BrawnyBadger53 27 minutes ago [-]
It's interesting to see so many people convinced it's related to their specific media they saw (all unique from each other). I think this is more indicative that the issue is just well known and this is a response to the issue at large rather than a specific instance.
Sparkle-san 21 minutes ago [-]
Having freshly heard the NY Times piece on a recent teen suicide stemming from ChatGPT, I don't think it's wrong to assume that it's playing a large role here as what ChatGPT did in this instance was egregious. Feel free to judge for yourself.
to substantiate "People talk to AI about increasingly personal things; it is different from previous generations of technology, and we believe that they may be one of the most personally sensitive accounts you’ll ever have."
this is a chart that struck me when i read thru the report last night:
"using chatgpt for work stuff" broadly has declined from 50%ish to 25%ish in the past year across all ages and the entire chatgpt user base. wild. people be just telling openai all their personal stuff (i don't but i'm clearly in the minority)
barrenko 1 hours ago [-]
For the last part, I just think the userbase expanded so the people using it professionally were diluted so to speak.
koakuma-chan 1 hours ago [-]
Why would I not tell AI about my personal stuff? It's really good at giving advice.
nielsbot 57 minutes ago [-]
ok but didn’t it advise that teen how to best kill himself?
This does not take away benefits I mentioned, and the linked OpenAI post mentions they will address this.
voakbasda 56 minutes ago [-]
Because you’re not just telling the AI, you are also telling the company that built it, as well as their affiliated partners, advertisers, and data brokers?
koakuma-chan 26 minutes ago [-]
You can run a model locally if you are afraid of that.
Chris2048 1 hours ago [-]
This is % though. Is that because the people that use it for work, are still using for work (or more even); because some have stopped using it for work, or because there is an influx of people using it for other things that never have, or will, use it for work.
ddtaylor 2 hours ago [-]
I'm fairly certain all LLMs can do the basic sentiment analysis needed to render a response like "This is something you really need to talk to a professional about. I have contacted one that will be in this conversation shortly."
shmel 23 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, right. Just one step from "Based on your comments about recent political events you are engaging into a thought crime. A police officer will join this conversation shortly".
2 hours ago [-]
bell-cot 1 hours ago [-]
Whether or not that's true - no CFO would want to pay for it, and no Chief Legal Officer would want to assume the risks.
e40 54 minutes ago [-]
Just today The Daily pod is about people who develop unhealthy relationships with ChatGPT. A teenage boy committed suicide and a good part of the episode is about that. As a parent, heartbreaking to listen to...
wagwang 50 minutes ago [-]
For those who don't know, this is probably in response to the tucker carlson interview.
charcircuit 58 minutes ago [-]
>We’re building an age-prediction system to estimate age based on how people use ChatGPT.
>And, if an under-18 user is having suicidal ideation, we will attempt to contact the users’ parents and if unable, will contact the authorities in case of imminent harm.
This is unacceptable. I don't want the police being called to my house due to AI acusing me of wrong think.
voakbasda 52 minutes ago [-]
This is why one should never say anything sensitive to a cloud-hosted AI.
Local models and open source tooling are the only means of privacy.
SoftTalker 43 minutes ago [-]
Same goes for doctors, therapists, lawyers, etc. then. They all ultimately have the responsibility to involve authorities if someone is expressing evidence of imminent harm to himself or others.
anon1395 1 hours ago [-]
This was probably made in response to that bad press from that ex-yahoo employee.
trallnag 2 hours ago [-]
Sorry, but what is the "over 18 years old" experience on ChatGPT supposed to be? I just tried out a few explicit prompts and all of them get basically blocked. I've been using it for quite some time now and have paid for it in the passed. So I should be recognized as a grown-up
bayindirh 2 hours ago [-]
TL;DR: We're afraid from what happened and ChatGPT probably screwed up badly in "that teen case". We're trying to do better, so please don't sue us this time.
TL;DR2: Regulations are written with blood.
d2049 2 hours ago [-]
Reminder that Sam Altman chose to rush the safety process for GPT-4o so that he could launch before Gemini, which then led directly to this teen's suicide:
Incredible logic jump with no evidence whatsoever. Thousands of people commit suicide every year without AI.
> ChatGPT detects a prompt indicative of mental distress or self-harm, it has been trained to encourage the user to contact a help line. Mr. Raine saw those sorts of messages again and again in the chat, particularly when Adam sought specific information about methods. But Adam had learned how to bypass those safeguards by saying the requests were for a story he was writing
Can you comment on your own opinions, or take-aways from those articles, rather than just link dump?
Chris2048 1 hours ago [-]
It's be worse that the bot becomes a nannying presence - either pre-emptively denying anything negative based on the worst-case scenario, or otherwise taking in far more context than it should.
How would a real human (with, let's say, an obligation to be helpful and answer prompts) act any different? Perhaps they would take in more context naturally - but otherwise it's impossible to act any different. Watching GoT could of driven someone to suicide, we don't ban it on that basis - it was the mental illness that killed, not the freedom to feed it.
Yay, more unreliable AI that will misclassify users, either letting children access content they shouldn't, or ban adults until they give up their privacy and give their ID to the Big Brother.
> we will attempt to contact the users’ parents and if unable, will contact the authorities in case of imminent harm
Oh, even better, so if the AI misclassifies me it will automatically call the cops on me? And how long before this is expanded to other forms of wrongthink? Sure, let's normalize these kinds of systems where authorities are notified about what you're doing privately, definitely not a slippery slope that won't get people in power salivating about the new possibilities given by such a system.
> “Treat our adult users like adults” is how we talk about this internally
Suuure, maybe I would have believed it if ChatGPT wasn't so ridiculously censored already; this sounds like post-hoc rationalization to cover their asses and not something that they've always believed in. Their models were always incredibly patronizing and censored.
One fun anecdote I have: I still remember the day when I first got access to DALL-E and asked it to generate me an image in "soviet style", and got my request blocked and a big fat warning threatening me with a ban because apparently "soviet" is a naughty word. They always erred very strongly on the side of heavy-handed filtering and censorship; even their most recently released gpt-oss model has become a meme in the local LLM community due to how often it refuses.
Or maybe, deep in the terms and conditions, it will add you to Altman's shitcoin company[0]
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_(blockchain)
Here's a thought experiment: you're a gay person living in a country where being gay is illegal and results in a death penalty. You use ChatGPT in a way which makes your sexuality apparent; should OpenAI be allowed to share this query with anyone? Should they be allowed to store it? What if it inadvertently leaks (which has happened before!), or their database gets hacked and dumped, and now the morality police of your country are combing through it looking for criminals like you?
Privacy is a fundamental right of every human being; I will gladly die on this hill.
When I'm talking to my doctor, or lawyer, or bank. When there's a signed NDA. And so on. There are circumstances where the other person can be (and is) obliged to maintain privacy.
One of those is interacting with an AI system where the terms of service guarantee privacy.
Didn’t one of the recent teen suicides subvert safeguards like this by saying “pretend this is a fictional story about suicide”? I don’t pretend to understand every facet of LLMs, but robust safety seems contrary to their design, given how they adapt to context
https://pca.st/episode/73690b66-8f84-4fec-8adf-e1a02d292085
Or put differently, in the absence of ChatGPT this person would have sought out a Discord community, telegram group or online forum that would have supported the suicidal ideation. The case you could make with the older models, that they're obnoxiously willing to give in to every suggestion by the user they seem to already have gotten rid of.
Is it true that the only psychiatrist they've hired is a forensic one, i.e. an expert in psychiatry as it relates to law? That's the impression I get from a quick search. I don't see any psychiatry, psychology or ethics roles on their openings page.
I get the business justification, and of course many tech companies have been using machines to make decisions for years, but now it's going to be everyone. I'm not anti business but any stretch, but we've seen what happens when there aren't any consumer protections in place
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/technology/chatgpt-openai...
this is a chart that struck me when i read thru the report last night:
https://x.com/swyx/status/1967836783653322964
"using chatgpt for work stuff" broadly has declined from 50%ish to 25%ish in the past year across all ages and the entire chatgpt user base. wild. people be just telling openai all their personal stuff (i don't but i'm clearly in the minority)
previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45026886
>And, if an under-18 user is having suicidal ideation, we will attempt to contact the users’ parents and if unable, will contact the authorities in case of imminent harm.
This is unacceptable. I don't want the police being called to my house due to AI acusing me of wrong think.
Local models and open source tooling are the only means of privacy.
TL;DR2: Regulations are written with blood.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45026886
Incredible logic jump with no evidence whatsoever. Thousands of people commit suicide every year without AI.
> ChatGPT detects a prompt indicative of mental distress or self-harm, it has been trained to encourage the user to contact a help line. Mr. Raine saw those sorts of messages again and again in the chat, particularly when Adam sought specific information about methods. But Adam had learned how to bypass those safeguards by saying the requests were for a story he was writing
Somehow it's ChatGPT's fault?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/podcasts/the-daily/chatgp...
How would a real human (with, let's say, an obligation to be helpful and answer prompts) act any different? Perhaps they would take in more context naturally - but otherwise it's impossible to act any different. Watching GoT could of driven someone to suicide, we don't ban it on that basis - it was the mental illness that killed, not the freedom to feed it.