Mother accuses OpenAI of exploiting kids

(CN) — A mother accused OpenAI in a class action Tuesday of sidestepping parental consent to allow children to use its chatbot, addicting them to the technology while stealing their information to train its large language models.

“Through its artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, OpenAI has profited from our children on an unprecedented scale,” the unnamed mother writes in her 81-page complaint. “For years, it wrongfully has extracted vast amounts of highly sensitive and valuable data from millions of children … It then used that priceless trove of children’s information to train large languagemodels, build detailed profiles of children and enrich itself. All of this was illegal.”

First released in 2022, ChatGPT now boasts over half the global market share of chatbots.

Although its owner, OpenAI, claims that minors need their parents’ permission in order to create accounts to use ChatGPT, the plaintiff says that in practice, kids are simply asked to write in their names and to check a box stating they are over 13 years old.

“Under the law, children cannot sign away their rights in this way,” the plaintiff writes. “OpenAI knows this, so it says it requires parental consent for children to use ChatGPT. But it doesn’t actually do that. It does not even communicate with children’s parents, much less secure their effective consent.”