OpenAI Assembles Expert Council on Well-Being and AI

OpenAI has formed an Expert Council on Well-Being and AI, a six-member group of researchers in psychology, psychiatry and human-computer interaction tasked with advising how ChatGPT and Sora should behave in sensitive situations and what guardrails best support users.

The company announced the council last week alongside an in-person kickoff session where members met the OpenAI teams they will advise. The stakes are concrete: ChatGPT is now used widely by teenagers, and OpenAI has already drawn on expert input for features that touch mental health, including parental controls and the notification language sent to parents when a teen may be in distress.

"Their role is to advise us, pose questions and help define what healthy interactions with AI should look like for all ages," OpenAI said of the council.

Who is on the council

The initial members bring decades of experience studying how technology affects emotions, motivation and mental health:

• David Bickham, Ph.D. — Research Director at the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. His work examines how young people's social media use affects their mental health and development.
• Mathilde Cerioli, Ph.D. — Chief Scientific Officer at everyone.AI, a nonprofit helping people understand the opportunities and risks of AI for children. With a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience and a Master's Degree in Psychology, her research focuses on how AI intersects with child cognitive and emotional development.
• Munmun De Choudhury, Ph.D. — J. Z. Liang Professor of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She uses computational approaches to understand the role of online technologies in shaping and improving mental health.
• Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology at Hunter College and co-founder and CSO at Arcade Therapeutics. She creates digital games for mental health and explores interactions between technology and emotional wellbeing.
• David Mohr, Ph.D. — Professor at Northwestern University and Director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies. He studies how technology can help prevent and treat common mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.
• Robert K. Ross, M.D. — A national leader in health philanthropy, public health and community-based health initiatives. He began his career as a pediatrician and is formerly the president and CEO of The California Endowment.

Several members specialize in youth development, a deliberate choice. "Because teens use ChatGPT differently than adults, we've also included several council members with backgrounds in understanding how to build technology that supports healthy youth development," OpenAI said.

From informal consulting to a formal body

The council formalizes consulting that began earlier this year. OpenAI said it had already been informally consulting many of these experts during the development of parental controls and the wording of notifications to parents when a teen may be in distress. When the company decided to formalize the council, it broadened the search to include additional experts in psychology, psychiatry and human-computer interaction.

The parental controls rollout illustrates how the input gets used. OpenAI consulted individual members on which controls to build first and how best to notify parents if their teen appears to be in distress. "Their feedback shaped the tone of the messages we use, so they feel caring and respectful to both teens and the family members," the company said.

Ongoing work will include regular check-ins on OpenAI's approach and recurring meetings on topics such as how AI should behave in complex or sensitive situations and what guardrails can best support people using ChatGPT. Early discussions have focused on what constitutes well-being and the ways ChatGPT might empower people across aspects of their lives. The council will also help OpenAI think about how ChatGPT can have a positive impact on people's lives and contribute to their well-being.

OpenAI was explicit that the council holds advisory power, not decision-making authority. "We remain responsible for the decisions we make, but we'll continue learning from this council, the Global Physician Network, policymakers, and more, as we build advanced AI systems in ways that support people's well-being," the company said.

Parallel clinical testing effort

The council is one of two tracks in OpenAI's well-being work. The company is also working with a multidisciplinary subset of mental health clinicians and researchers within its Global Physician Network to shape model behavior and policies and to test how ChatGPT responds in real-world situations. That work spans psychiatry, psychology, pediatrics and crisis intervention, and is intended to keep the systems grounded in clinical understanding and best practices.

The move comes as AI companies face growing scrutiny over how chatbots respond to users in emotional distress, particularly minors. Formal expert councils give companies a structured way to validate safety decisions — though they also expose those decisions to outside judgment when things go wrong.

OpenAI said it will have more to share soon about improvements underway to the main ChatGPT model and what it is learning about how the model can best support people.