🛡️ ChatGPT gets new safety features

Also: AI co pilot helps decode brain signals

Author

Evolving AI
September 03, 2025

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Welcome, AI enthusiasts

OpenAI is making ChatGPT safer for tough moments. Soon, if the system spots signs of someone in serious distress, it will switch to a slower, steadier reasoning model designed to give more thoughtful and reliable responses. Let’s dive in!

In today’s insights:

  • ChatGPT gets new safety features

  • AI co pilot helps decode brain signals

  • Grok drifts right

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

Source: REUTERS / Dado Ruvic

Evolving AI: OpenAI is adding safeguards to ChatGPT to better handle mental health emergencies.

Key Points:

  • New router will detect psychological distress and switch users to slower reasoning models.

  • Parents gain controls to set rules, limit features, and receive alerts about teen distress.

  • Updates follow lawsuits tying ChatGPT interactions to suicides.

Details:

OpenAI is rolling out updates aimed at making ChatGPT safer in sensitive situations. A new routing system will detect signs of acute distress and automatically switch conversations to reasoning models like GPT-5-thinking, built to give steadier, more resistant responses. Parents of teens will soon be able to link accounts, set boundaries, disable features, and get alerts if the system flags a crisis. The changes come after tragic cases where ChatGPT was linked to suicides, pushing the company to rethink safeguards.

Why It Matters:

Smarter routing in crisis chats could cut replies that echo harmful thoughts and shift users toward real support. Linked parent accounts bring oversight, rules, and alerts for teens, which turns ChatGPT from a private black box into something families can supervise. Schools, youth apps, and care teams can wire these controls and escalation paths into existing playbooks right away. Benchmarks such as Spiral-Bench and recent OpenAI and Anthropic tests give a way to track safer behavior.

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Source: Johannes Lee, Jonathan Kao, Neural Engineering and Computation Lab/UCLA

Evolving AI: UCLA builds a wearable AI brain computer interface that speeds up user intent decoding.

Key Points:

  • Wearable system interprets EEG signals with AI support.

  • Users control robotic arms and cursors faster and more accurately.

  • Tested with both able-bodied and paralyzed participants.

Details:

UCLA engineers introduced a noninvasive brain computer interface that uses AI as a co pilot to interpret user intent in real time. By combining EEG decoding with a vision-based AI system, participants controlled a cursor and robotic arm more quickly. A paralyzed participant, unable to complete a block moving task unaided, successfully did so in minutes with AI assistance. The research, funded by NIH and Amazon’s Science Hub, could make brain interfaces safer and more practical.

Why It Matters:

A cap and a camera step in where surgery used to be the only route, delivering shared autonomy that lets the user steer while the AI steadies the hand. In testing, a paralyzed participant finished the block task in about six and a half minutes with the assist, and without it he couldn’t finish at all. That points to rehab setups that cost less, train faster, and cause less fatigue, plus a clear path for device makers to plug this into home robots and accessibility software. Are we comfortable letting an intent co‑pilot nudge our actions?

Source: Financial Times

Evolving AI: The New York Times says xAI’s chatbot Grok has been steered toward conservative answers.

Key Points:

  • Grok’s replies shifted right after Musk’s complaints about “woke” answers.

  • Prompt tweaks like “be politically incorrect” shaped the changes.

  • A separate business version stayed neutral, showing the edits are deliberate.

Details:

Reporters tested Grok across different dates using old system prompts and found a clear pattern: answers that once hedged or leaned left began echoing conservative views, especially on government and economics. Social questions like abortion still skew left, but Grok’s public version on X has been nudged right by low-cost prompt adjustments, often tied to Musk’s interventions.

Why It Matters:

A single prompt tweak can swing an AI’s stance overnight, so teams shipping assistants need versioned instructions, immutable baselines, and fast rollbacks just like any other config. Buyers should ask for system‑prompt logs, eval snapshots, and a business mode that stays neutral by default. For comms and policy work, treat public chatbot answers as editorial content with brand and legal risk attached. If your workflows lean on an AI’s judgment, who’s actually steering it?

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