The news: OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT mental health safeguards for people in crisis and boosting protection specifically for teens with added parental controls.

Digging into the details: OpenAI previewed details from its ongoing review in a blog post on Tuesday, outlining how it’s expanding interventions, making connections to emergency services and expert help easier, and adding teen protections.

• It’s working with 90 psychiatrists, pediatricians and general practitioners in mental health, and adding expertise in areas including eating disorders, substance use, and adolescent health.
• Parental controls allow parents to link accounts to teens (users must be older than 13 to use ChatGPT) and get notifications if the system detects their teen is in “acute distress.”

How we got here: AI chatbots have been at the center of several recent cases of mental health harm, including teen suicides and murder.

• In August, a Connecticut man killed himself and his mother after months of delusional interactions with ChatGPT, per the Wall Street Journal.
• Last month, the parents of a 16-year-old boy sued OpenAI after their son died by suicide, alleging ChatGPT helped him explore suicide methods.
• A California mom sued Character AI last year after she alleges the abusive relationship her teen son had with its chatbot led to his suicide.

Yes, and: Illinois became the first state to ban AI therapy last month, ruling that AI can be used by therapists for administrative tasks, but not for diagnoses or treatment.

Our take: Additional AI guardrails are a positive mental health development, but tech companies should continue to develop more. Healthcare is an important emerging use case for AI, but when it comes to mental health, caution and vigilance needs to trump speed to market.

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