Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced this week that ChatGPT will soon allow for “erotica” content in the spirit of treating “adult users like adults.”
The scheduled plans for ChatGPT will allow “users to customize their AI assistant’s personality, including options for more human-like responses, heavy emoji use, or friend-like behavior,” per The Guardian.
The new “erotica” content will likely arrive after OpenAI rolls out its comprehensive age-gating system this coming December, which will theoretically unlock the tech’s ability to verify users’ ages. Sam Altman did not specify the exact methods ChatGPT will employ for the age verification process in his announcement. The age-gating system will come several months after OpenAI launched a ChatGPT interface for minors this past September, which had a built-in automatic rerouter for age-appropriate content in response to inappropriate text prompts.
“We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right,” Altman announced on Tuesday. “Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.”
“In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!),” he added. “If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing). In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our ‘treat adult users like adults’ principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.”
Altman’s reference to the platform’s entanglement with “mental health issues” likely stems from a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the parents of Adam Raine, a California teenager who committed suicide after ChatGPT provided details on methods to kill himself.
OpenAI’s decision to include “Erotica” content on its platform follows billionaire Elon Musk’s unveiling of “two sexually explicit chatbot companions” this past summer with his artificial intelligence company xAI, per Breitbart News.
“While the tech tycoon is constantly throwing out ideas for the future of AI, from video game development to a Wikipedia replacement, his big bet seems to be on AI girlfriends and boyfriends for lonely people whose mental health will suffer from further isolation,” the report noted.
“Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company introduced two sexually explicit chatbot companions, Ani and Valentine,” it added. “The unveiling of these AI characters in July has pushed the boundaries of AI companionship, with Musk seemingly undeterred by the potential reputational and regulatory risks associated with such a venture.”
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