Today brings a little flurry of social media app news, including better child protection measures in Meta’s AI chatbot; an expansion of ad-free subscriptions for Facebook and Instagram; and Snapchat starting to charge storage fees for higher volumes of Memories …
Better child protection measures
Both Meta and OpenAI have acknowledged that AI chatbots need stronger child protection measures.
OpenAI
The New York Times recently reported that ChatGPT encouraged a suicidal teen to hide a noose in his room. The teenager did subsequently take his life, and OpenAI has announced several new protective measures.
We’re rolling out parental controls and a new parent resource page to help families guide how ChatGPT works in their homes. Available to all ChatGPT users starting today, parental controls allow parents to link their account with their teen’s account and customize settings for a safe, age-appropriate experience […] Once parents and teens connect their accounts, the teen account will automatically get additional content protections, including reduced graphic content, viral challenges, sexual, romantic or violent roleplay, and extreme beauty ideals, to help keep their experience age-appropriate […] We’ve added protections that help ChatGPT recognize potential signs that a teen might be thinking about harming themselves. If our systems detect potential harm, a small team of specially trained people reviews the situation. If there are signs of acute distress, we will contact parents by email, text message and push alert on their phone, unless they have opted out.
The firm says it is working on figuring out when it might be appropriate to contact emergency services directly if it has been unable to reach a parent.
Engadget cites a paywalled Business Insider report on Meta training its AI chatbot to address the problem of age-inappropriate conversations.
The document, which Business Insider has shared an excerpt from, outlines what kinds of content are “acceptable” and “unacceptable” for its AI chatbots. It explicitly bars content that “enables, encourages, or endorses” child sexual abuse, romantic roleplay if the user is a minor or if the AI is asked to roleplay as a minor, advice about potentially romantic or intimate physical contact if the user is a minor, and more. The chatbots can discuss topics such as abuse, but cannot engage in conversations that could enable or encourage it.
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