OpenAI has released new estimates of the number of ChatGPT users who exhibit possible signs of mental health emergencies, including mania, psychosis or suicidal thoughts.<\/p>\n
The company said that around 0.07% of ChatGPT users active in a given week exhibited such signs, adding that its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot recognizes and responds to these sensitive conversations.<\/p>\n
While OpenAI maintains these cases are \u00ab\u00a0extremely rare,\u00a0\u00bb critics said even a small percentage may amount to hundreds of thousands of people, as ChatGPT recently reached 800 million weekly active users, per boss Sam Altman.<\/p>\n
As scrutiny mounts, the company said it built a network of experts around the world to advise it.<\/p>\n
Those experts include more than 170 psychiatrists, psychologists, and primary care physicians who have practiced in 60 countries, the company said.<\/p>\n
They have devised a series of responses in ChatGPT to encourage users to seek help in the real world, according to OpenAI.<\/p>\n
But the glimpse at the company’s data raised eyebrows among some mental health professionals.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Even though 0.07% sounds like a small percentage, at a population level with hundreds of millions of users, that actually can be quite a few people,\u00a0\u00bb said Dr. Jason Nagata, a professor who studies technology use among young adults at the University of California, San Francisco.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0AI can broaden access to mental health support, and in some ways support mental health, but we have to be aware of the limitations,\u00a0\u00bb Dr. Nagata added.<\/p>\n
The company also estimates 0.15% of ChatGPT users have conversations that include \u00ab\u00a0explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
OpenAI said recent updates to its chatbot are designed to \u00ab\u00a0respond safely and empathetically to potential signs of delusion or mania\u00a0\u00bb and note \u00ab\u00a0indirect signals of potential self-harm or suicide risk.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
ChatGPT has also been trained to reroute sensitive conversations \u00ab\u00a0originating from other models to safer models\u00a0\u00bb by opening in a new window.<\/p>\n
In response to questions by the BBC on criticism about the numbers of people potentially affected, OpenAI said that this small percentage of users amounts to a meaningful amount of people and noted they are taking changes seriously.<\/p>\n
The changes come as OpenAI faces mounting legal scrutiny over the way ChatGPT interacts with users.<\/p>\n
In one of the most high-profile lawsuits recently filed against OpenAI, a California couple sued the company over the death of their teenage son alleging that ChatGPT encouraged him to take his own life in April.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit was filed by the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine and was the first legal action accusing OpenAI of wrongful death.<\/p>\n
In a separate case, the suspect in a murder-suicide that took place in August in Greenwich, Connecticut posted hours of his conversations with ChatGPT, which appear to have fuelled the alleged perpetrator’s delusions.<\/p>\n
More users struggle with AI psychosis as \u00ab\u00a0chatbots create the illusion of reality,\u00a0\u00bb said Professor Robin Feldman, Director of the AI Law & Innovation Institute at the University of California Law. \u00ab\u00a0It is a powerful illusion.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
She said OpenAI deserved credit for \u00ab\u00a0sharing statistics and for efforts to improve the problem\u00a0\u00bb but added: \u00ab\u00a0the company can put all kinds of warnings on the screen but a person who is mentally at risk may not be able to heed those warnings.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world’s top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OpenAI has released new estimates of the number of ChatGPT users who exhibit possible signs of mental health emergencies, including mania, psychosis or suicidal thoughts. The company said that around 0.07% of ChatGPT users active in a given week exhibited such signs, adding that its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot recognizes and responds to these sensitive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}