ChatGPT for Teens, Crashing Robots, and What Social Media Bans Fail to Address

Last week OpenAI released ChatGPT for teens with safety guardrails and a focus on study. Built-in age prediction systems or voluntary age declaration will automatically place teen users into a teen account.

• 🎙️ OpenAI says that “ChatGPT should not use romantic language, encourage emotional dependence, or imply that it has feelings or consciousness.” Using “should not” in the announcement seems to recognize they can’t fully guarantee their own guardrails. And while there are some parental controls, parents should know that they have zero access to conversations with the exception of “rare cases where our systems and trained reviewers detect possible signs of serious safety concern, parents may be notified—but only with the information needed to support their teen’s safety.”

This past weekend the World Humanoid Robot Games kicked off in Beijing with sports competitions that included a 100-meter dash with robots that couldn’t stop.

• 🎙️ Humanoid robotics is the likely evolution of AI in our lifetime. Forty percent of the events required “full autonomy.” But show us robots that wash dishes or mow lawns and leave the athletics to us humans.

TikTok will pay $400 million to settle a dispute with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) which alleged the social media platform violated child privacy laws by knowingly allowing underage users on its platform.

• 🎙️ The settlement comes two years after the civil lawsuit was first filed by the DOJ, during which time TikTok avoided a ban in the U.S. by agreeing to an American-owned joint venture and implemented age-detection features to weed out underage users.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is attempting to follow Australia’s lead by introducing a bill to ban social media for anyone under 16. Luxon admitted, “We won’t get every ⁠single ​child off social media. Some will always find ​ways around it, but frankly, it’s just way too important not to at least try.”

• 🎙️ As we stated when Australia passed its legislation, the ban focuses on keeping teens off of social media, but does nothing to prepare them for when they’re on it. That’s the void Driver’s Training for the Online World fills.

Speaking of Driver’s Training for the Online World… if you missed our last LIVE webinar, we’re running it back LIVE on YouTube on Thursday, September 10th at 7pm (CDT). Save the date, subscribe to our YouTube Channel, and share the details with friends.

• 🎙️ We’ll go through each lesson in Module 1 (Humanity) of Driver’s Training for the Online World in 60 minutes... the video, quiz, discussion questions, thought experiments, and action ideas.