I guess AI isn’t addictive enough on its own. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said yesterday that as the company starts verifying the ages of its users, it will relax existing rules and allow erotica on ChatGPT. In other words, AI porn is coming to the world’s biggest AI-powered answer engine.
“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,” he posted on X yesterday.
Altman didn’t give details about what that might look like, but ChatGPT can both carry out conversations and generate images, so the erotica could be both text-based and visual. In addition, OpenAI also recently launched Sora, the viral AI video generator, so short video segments will likely also be possible.
There will still be some controls, of course. No one will see or get erotica unless they ask for it, Altman added, and the reason OpenAI hasn’t rolled out something like this in the past is concern over people with mental health issues.
But AI policy researcher Tolga Bilge called out Altman for a seeming course reversal from just a few months ago, when he told an interviewer that he was proud OpenAI hasn’t taken short-term tactical steps to juice engagement and boost growth … like creating a “sexbot avatar.”
Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI, a competitor to OpenAI, recently launched sexy AI companions, and porn has been a well-known growth vector for new technologies from VHS to cable TV to the internet. “Incredible how the common denominator of every platform across all functionalities is porn,” noted an account purportedly authored by a behavioral economist named Mark Valorian.
Comments on the move are mixed.
“Why do age-gates always have to lead to erotica?” asked AI creator and photographer Cate Bligh. “I just want to be able to be treated like an adult and not a toddler, that doesn't mean I want perv-mode activated.”
Others were happy about the move.
“About time,” says software engineer Roubal Sehgal. “ChatGPT used to feel like a person you could actually talk to, then it turned into a compliance bot. If it can be made fun again without losing the guardrails, that's a huge win.”
Opening the floodgates to AI porn, however, is a big step for a platform that hundreds of millions of people use, including students and professionals in office settings. ChatGPT has been a safe-for-work and safe-for-home platform for getting answers and solving problems.
Now, in addition to becoming a marketplace, ChatGPT is becoming an entertainment space and a new kind of porn hub.
“So more porn to dehumanize women further?” says Luna Bean. “What a wonderful improvement.”