There’s a cultural shift underway, and it’s not just impacting the business world. AI has touched every corner of society, but what was originally seen by many, at least, as a race to adopt the biggest and best solutions has transformed into a long game. Now, it’s less about how quickly we can implement AI and more about how cleverly we can develop a long-term strategy for success.
That understanding is raising societal questions about the presence of AI in the job market, whether it will begin to make decisions on behalf of regulators and governments, and how we can manage it as it touches users across generations. That’s one question OpenAI has set out to answer with the launch of ChatGPT for Teens and its partnership with CodeAI.
OpenAI’s leadership is aiming high and has publicly announced that these steps are designed to help achieve something grand: to prepare the first AI generation.
What Is ChatGPT for Teens?
OpenAI describes ChatGPT for Teens as “…an experience designed to help teens learn, think critically, deepen understanding, and use AI with confidence.” In practice, this means more sophisticated, integrated safety measures specifically for users in that age group, including parental controls and “healthy use” features.
OpenAI says that any user the system believes to be younger than 18, or who states that they are between 13 and 17, will be diverted to the new service automatically. Beyond simply being a safer alternative to ChatGPT in general, ChatGPT for Teens has been designed as an AI experience to support how young people learn, study and interact with AI.
The new features include, most significantly, Study Mode, which helps guide teen users through problems step by step instead of simply giving them the answer; responsible homework reminders, which, no doubt to the ire of teenagers, detect when they may be taking a shortcut and redirect them towards a more critical-thinking route; and quizzes to help teens test their knowledge.
As well as better safety precautions and parental controls, the new system also includes break reminders and sensitive-image warnings.
While it doesn’t account for everything, and a user under 13 can still lie about their age, it does go some way towards enforcing age-appropriate protections, especially as users are directed automatically.
OpenAI + CodeAI
Alongside the launch of ChatGPT for Teens, OpenAI also announced a partnership with CodeAI, the non-profit computer science education platform formerly known as Code.org. Together, the two organizations will build practical programmes to help students better understand AI, learn how to use it safely, and leverage it to support their learning.
“Parents and educators want young people to be ready for a future shaped by AI — and they are right to expect that to come with care,” said Dr. Allison Mishkin, Head of Child Development at OpenAI.
“Our goal is not simply to help more students use AI, but to help them ask better questions, think critically about the answers they receive and use these tools responsibly.
“We look forward to working alongside CodeAI, parents and educators to learn, improve and help young people build those skills.”
Final Thoughts
OpenAI has gradually tailored ChatGPT for two distinct markets: enterprise and consumer. But in doing so, and given the degree to which ChatGPT is used, the company has put itself in the spotlight. Under that spotlight, it has a responsibility to shape, responsibly, how the first generation to grow up with AI interacts with it.
Moving forward, you can expect to see others follow suit to help ensure that AI becomes a tool that helps young people learn and think critically rather than doing all the work for them. Adding the CodeAI partnership into the mix, you can see the broader aim here: to promote AI literacy in the same way there has been a push for digital literacy among younger users.
Today, AI companies aren’t just competing to build the most powerful technology. More and more, they’re competing to deliver the trusted, familiar platforms that people will learn and work with throughout their lives.
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