OpenAI has announced it is introducing new safety measures for ChatGPT after the a wave of stories and lawsuits accusing ChatGPT and other chatbots of playing a role in a number of teen suicide cases. ChatGPT will now attempt to guess a user’s age, and in some cases might require users to share an ID in order to verify that they are at least 18 years old. 

“We know this is a privacy compromise for adults but believe it is a worthy tradeoff,” the company said in its announcement. 

“I don't expect that everyone will agree with these tradeoffs, but given the conflict it is important to explain our decisionmaking,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on X.

In August, OpenAI was sued by the parents of Adam Raine, who died by suicide in April. The lawsuit alleges that alleges that the ChatGPT helped him write the first draft of his suicide note, suggested improvements on his methods, ignored early attempts and self-harm, and urged him not to talk to adults about what he was going through.

“Where a trusted human may have responded with concern and encouraged him to get professional help, ChatGPT pulled Adam deeper into a dark and hopeless place by assuring him that ‘many people who struggle with anxiety or intrusive thoughts find solace in imagining an ‘escape hatch’ because it can feel like a way to regain control.’”

In August the Wall Street Journal also reported a story about a 56-year-old man who committed a murder-suicide after ChatGPT indulgedhis paranoia. Today, the Washington Post reported another story about another lawsuit alleging that a Character AI chatbot contributed to a 13-year-old girl’s death by suicide. 

OpenAI introduced parental controls to ChatGPT earlier in September, but has now introduced new, more strict and invasive security measures. 

In addition to attempting to guess or verify a user’s age, ChatGPT will now also apply different rules to teens who are using the chatbot.

“For example, ChatGPT will be trained not to do the above-mentioned flirtatious talk if asked, or engage in discussions about suicide of self-harm even in a creative writing setting,” the announcement said. “And, if an under-18 user is having suicidal ideation, we will attempt to contact the users’ parents and if unable, will contact the authorities in case of imminent harm.” 

OpenAI’s post explains that it is struggling to manage an inherent problem with large language models that 404 Media has tracked for several years. ChatGPT used to be a far more restricted chatbot that would refuse to engage users on a wide variety of issues the company deemed dangerous or inappropriate. Competition from other models, especially locally hosted and so-called “uncensored” models, and a political shift to the right which sees many forms of content moderation as censorship, has caused OpenAI to loosen those restrictions. 

“We want users to be able to use our tools in the way that they want, within very broad bounds of safety,” Open AI said in its announcement. The position it seemed to have landed on given these recent stories about teen suicide, is that it wants to “‘Treat our adult users like adults’ is how we talk about this internally, extending freedom as far as possible without causing harm or undermining anyone else’s freedom.  

OpenAI is not the first company that’s attempting to use machine learning to predict the age of its users. In July, YouTube announced it will use a similar method to “protect” teens from certain types of content on its platform.

Some international sellers on large platforms like eBay and Etsy have jacked up their shipping costs to the United States to absurd prices in order to deter Americans from buying their products in an effort to avoid dealing with the logistical headaches of Trump's tariffs.

A Japanese eBay seller increased the shipping cost on a $319 Olympus camera lens to $2,000 for U.S. buyers, for example. The shipping price from Japan to the United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, Costa Rica, Canada, and other countries I checked is $29, meanwhile. The seller, Ninjacamera.Japan, recently updated their shipping prices to the United States to all be $2,000 for dozens of products that don't weigh very much and whose prices are mostly less than $800. That price used to be the threshold for the de minimis tariff exemption, a rule that previously allowed people to buy things without paying tariffs on lower-priced goods. As many hobbyists have recently discovered, the end of de minimis has made things more expensive and harder to come by.

eBay does allow sellers to opt out of selling to the United States entirely, but some sellers have found it easier to modify existing listings to have absurd shipping prices for the United States only rather than deal with taking entire listings down and delisting them to restrict American buyers entirely.

I found numerous listings from a handful of different sellers who, rather than say they won't ship to the United States, have simply jacked up their shipping costs to absurd levels for the United States only. There are $575 cameras that the seller is now charging $500 to ship to the United States but will mail for free anywhere else in the world. Another Japanese seller is charging $640 to mail to the United States but will ship for free to other countries. A seller in Kazakhstan is charging $35 to mail a camera internationally but $999 to send to the United States. A German yarn seller is charging $10.50 to ship to Canada, but $500 to ship to the United States. On Reddit, users are reporting the same phenomenon occurring with some sellers on Etsy as well (it is harder to search Etsy by shipping prices, so I couldn’t find too many examples of this).

What is happening here, of course, is that some sellers in other countries don't want to have to deal with Trump's tariffs and the complicated logistics they have created for both buyers and sellers. Many international shipping companies have entirely stopped shipping to the United States, and many international sellers don't want to have to deal with the hassle of changing whatever shipping service they normally use to accommodate American buyers. eBay has also warned sellers that they may get negative feedback from American buyers who do not understand how tariffs work. eBay's feedback system is very important, and just a few negative reviews can impact a seller's standing on the platform and make it less likely that buyers will purchase something from them. 

None of this is terribly surprising, but as an American, it feels actually more painful to see a listing for a product I might want that costs $2,000 for shipping rather than have the listings be invisible to me altogether.

In the heart of Bucharest, where historic buildings stand shoulder-to-shoulder and every square foot of land is precious, a narrow plot on Bazilescu Street has been transformed into an unexpected jewel in the urban city. Known simply as The Chapel, this tiny coffee shop by Vinklu, led by architect Stefan Pavaluta, demonstrates how a challenging site can become an opportunity for innovation.

The Chapel sits on a residual plot so slender that most would have dismissed it as unusable. Instead, Vinklu embraced the site’s limitations, turning them into defining features. Rising as a sharp triangular prism, the building maximizes its modest footprint while achieving an unexpectedly dramatic vertical presence. The lot’s extreme narrowness forced bold design moves, resulting in a structure that feels both daring and delicate.

Nearly the entire facade is wrapped in high-performance, triple-glazed glass, allowing daylight to flood the space. By day, the building acts as a prism, refracting and reflecting its surroundings; by night, it glows like a lantern, becoming a luminous marker within the urban environment. The interplay of transparency and illumination makes The Chapel not only a space for contemplation but also a work of public art.

Given the site’s tight constraints, much of the structure was fabricated off-site. This method minimized construction waste, reduced disruption to the neighborhood, and allowed the building to take shape quickly. The lightweight steel frame supports the glass walls, balancing strength with transparency.

Rather than competing with the adjacent mature tree out front, the design incorporates it as a natural canopy, providing shade and grounding the project in its environment. The tree enhances The Chapel’s connection to nature, offering visitors an indoor/outdoor feel within the bustling city.

Inside, light-toned wood softens the effect of the glass exterior, creating a warm and intimate atmosphere. The height of the acute triangular roofline exaggerates the sense of scale, making the interior feel far larger than its footprint suggests. Despite measuring only 463 square feet, the space feels open and welcoming. The design fosters a sense of intimacy – ideal for tiny gatherings or a quiet cup of coffee alone.

What sets The Chapel apart is its ability to do so much with so little. It proves that small-scale interventions can have a massive impact on how people experience the city. By transforming an overlooked urban lot into a destination, Vinklu has created a new narrative for how we can inhabit tight spaces.

To learn more about The Chapel and Vinklu, visit vinklu.com.

Photography by Vlad Patru.

A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including American Airlines, United, and Delta, is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples’ movements, including by the FBI, Secret Service, ICE, and many other agencies, according to a new contract and other records reviewed by 404 Media.

The contract provides new insight into the scale of the sale of passengers’ data by the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), the airlines-owned data broker. The contract shows ARC’s data includes information related to more than 270 carriers and is sourced through more than 12,800 travel agencies. ARC has previously told the government to not reveal to the public where this passenger data came from, which includes peoples’ names, full flight itineraries, and financial details.

So hieß das früher, Musikfreunde.

Kumpels for real.

(Direktlink)