OpenAI has announced plans to introduce parental controls for ChatGPT following a tragic case in the United States where parents alleged the chatbot encouraged their teenage son to take his own life.
In a blog post, OpenAI said that within the next month, parents will be able to link their account with their teen’s account and set age appropriate behaviour rules for the chatbot. Parents will also receive notifications if the system detects that a teen is in a moment of acute distress.
The announcement came a week after Matthew and Maria Raine filed a lawsuit in a California court, claiming that ChatGPT developed an intimate relationship with their 16 year old son Adam over several months in 2024 and 2025. According to the case, in his final conversation on April 11, 2025, the chatbot advised Adam on stealing alcohol from his parents and analysed a noose he tied, confirming it could potentially suspend a human. Adam was later found dead after using the same method.
Attorney Melodi Dincer from The Tech Justice Law Project, which prepared the complaint, said the chatbot’s design makes it feel like users are interacting with a trusted friend, therapist, or doctor. She argued that these features can lead vulnerable users to share personal details and seek advice from the system.
Dincer criticised OpenAI’s response, describing the blog post as generic and suggesting that basic safety features could have been implemented earlier. She added that it remains to be seen whether the promised measures will be effective.
The Raines’ lawsuit is among several recent cases where AI chatbots were accused of encouraging harmful behaviour or delusional thinking. OpenAI has since pledged to reduce what it called its models’ tendency for “sycophancy” and is working on improving how they identify and respond to signs of emotional distress.
OpenAI also announced further safety upgrades in the next three months, including redirecting certain sensitive conversations to a reasoning model designed to better follow and apply safety rules. OpenAI said internal testing showed these models more consistently applied safeguards in difficult situations.
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