{"id":91142,"date":"2025-10-19T19:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T19:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/91142\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T19:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T19:28:09","slug":"sam-altman-wants-to-treat-adults-like-adults-but-can-openai-keep-chatgpt-safe-after-opening-the-door-to-erotica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/91142\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Altman wants to ‘treat adults like adults’\u2014but can OpenAI keep ChatGPT safe after opening the door to erotica?"},"content":{"rendered":"

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has announced that <\/a>ChatGPT will soon be able to generate erotica for verified adult users. The move, framed by Altman as an effort to \u201ctreat adult users like adults,\u201d comes as the company faces scrutiny over the way its AI bot can affect users\u2019 mental health amid the rise of so-called \u201cAI psychosis\u201d cases. It also follows in the footsteps of rival companies, including Elon Musk\u2019s xAI, which have already introduced more sexually explicit chatbot \u201ccompanions\u201d to their platforms.<\/p>\n

There is clearly a large demand for AI chatbots that are capable of behaving in romantic or sexual ways. An April survey of 6,000 regular AI users by the Harvard Business Review<\/a> found that \u201ccompanionship and therapy\u201d was the most common use case. Another study from Ark Invest <\/a>found that adult-focused AI platforms made significant gains last year, capturing 14.5% of the market previously dominated by OnlyFans, up from just 1.5% the year before.<\/p>\n

Popular alternatives that market themselves as companion AI chatbots, such as Character.ai and Replika, also speak to this growing demand from users. Earlier this year, xAI introduced \u201ccompanion mode\u201d for its chatbot Grok, a feature that lets users engage with various characters, including a highly sexualized anime persona called \u201cAni.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOpenAI is stuck between a bit of a rock and a hard place, because I think they have seen a strong demand signal from users,\u201d Jessica Li, a senior research analyst at Georgetown\u2019s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told Fortune. \u201cIn terms of the relationships that people are having with models\u2026erotic content or adult content would also fall under this bucket of emotional engagement with the models.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move could be an attempt by OpenAI to \u201cstraddle the line\u201d between keeping the market share they already have by promising opt-in content moderation for NSFW content, Li said, while also seeing if they can capture other users from more specialized or niche services like Replika.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite some of the narratives around building artificial general intelligence that will supercharge the economy, OpenAI is still trying to operate as a technology platform, and somewhat like a social media company,\u201d Li said. \u201cThere\u2019s an interesting tension between the narratives that are being sold to investors and politicians\u2026 versus the things that are actually happening in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s foray into adult content has drawn criticism from child safety advocates and notable industry figures concerned about erotica reaching younger users, despite age verifications.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the entrepreneur and TV personality Mark Cuban said OpenAI\u2019s plan could \u201cbackfire hard,\u201d and argued that parents will not trust OpenAI\u2019s age filters to keep children away from explicit material. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission has already opened an inquiry into how AI chatbots interact with minors, and state lawmakers are considering tighter rules around digital companions and sexualized AI content. Jenny Kim, a partner at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, told the BBC <\/a>that OpenAI is \u201cusing people like guinea pigs,\u201d and questioned how the company would prevent children from accessing adult material on the platform.<\/p>\n

Reached for comment, OpenAI said that the company was building an age prediction system to understand whether someone is over or under 18. They added that if a user\u2019s age could not be confidently confirmed, the chatbot would take the safer route and default to the under-18 experience, while giving adults ways to prove their age to unlock adult capabilities.<\/p>\n

Reacting to some of the backlash on X, Altman said<\/a> that the announcement had blown \u201cup on the erotica point much more than I thought it was going to.\u201d He emphasized that the change was \u201cjust one example of us allowing more user freedom for adults,\u201d not a retreat from safety measures or guardrails around mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not the elected moral police of the world,\u201d he said, adding that ChatGPT would continue to \u201cprioritize safety over privacy and freedom for teenagers\u201d while giving adults more autonomy.<\/p>\n

The GPT-4o backlash<\/p>\n

OpenAI has also been reckoning with an unexpected wave of backlash following its decision to replace the version of ChatGPT powered by GPT-4o with its newer GPT-5 model. Users revolted against the change, citing lost AI friendships and romantic relationships with the earlier iteration of the bot. One petition to keep the earlier version of the bot gathered almost six thousand signatories.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many of us, GPT-4o offers a unique and irreplaceable user experience, combining qualities and capabilities that we value, regardless of performance benchmarks,\u201d the petitioners wrote in the change.org campaign <\/a>to keep GPT-4o. \u201cWe continue to benefit from GPT-4o in ways that are distinct and meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

While OpenAI eventually restored the earlier version, those in the #keep4o movement have since told Fortune they were worried about the company routing users to GPT-5<\/a>, \u201cwithout consent or notification.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Li, the announcement from OpenAI could be trying to signal something to these users: \u201cThe very public announcement of it does make me think that they\u2019re trying to signal something to users who are demanding this thing\u2014like, \u2018We hear you. We\u2019re responding to your desires.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The shift is also not entirely new; it builds upon a quieter update to OpenAI\u2019s Model Spec earlier this year. In February, OpenAI updated the document to relax the rules around sexual and violent content in what it called a move away from \u201cAI paternalism.\u201d <\/a>Updated guidelines at the time permitted the generation of written erotica and other sensitive material in appropriate contexts. OpenAI also told Fortune that the announcement was part of its plan to build on the latest release of the Model Spec, while maintaining boundaries against harmful uses like deepfakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has announced that ChatGPT will soon be able to generate erotica for verified…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,3781,5200,61,60,1682,2212,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-91142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-chatbots","12":"tag-content","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-openai","16":"tag-safety","17":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}