OpenAI Pledges $2 Million to Study AI and Children, With Negative Findings Promised Publication

OpenAI has pledged $2 million for research into AI's effects on children, joining a Paris initiative that promises researchers control over their conclusions and publication of negative or inconclusive findings. The company announced the commitment on November 12 after signing a child-safety charter at the Paris Peace Forum.

The money is intended to support a scientific research network under the Coalition for Children's Rights and Protection in the Age of AI. OpenAI describes its contribution as support for shared measurement tools, helping researchers assess both opportunities and risks. Its announcement does not name grant recipients or give a schedule for disbursing the money.

The charter takes aim at emotional dependency

The charter's shared principles reach into how AI products hold a child's attention. They call for measures against excessive use and services that encourage emotional attachment, alongside research into over-reliance and emotional dependency.

Age checks are another test. The text calls for privacy-preserving age assurance that goes beyond a user's own declaration, with independent evaluation of accuracy, privacy and fairness. It also asks for accessible parental tools, data minimization and design that accounts for children's developmental stages.

Those commitments sit alongside the practical questions already raised by ChatGPT's parental-alert system. Funding measurements can help establish whether a safeguard works; announcing research funding does not itself establish that a product is safe.

A pledge, with the findings still ahead

The coalition's September roadmap had invited companies and foundations to fund independent research and make their models available for outside evaluation. It planned to present initial voluntary commitments at the November forum.

OpenAI says the research programme includes safeguards for independence and that unfavorable or inconclusive results will be published. For a company funding work on technology it sells, that promise is a central part of the announcement. The $2 million is a commitment to help build evidence; the evidence has yet to arrive.

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