ChatGPT to allow ‘erotica’ for adult users

Agencies New York

ChatGPT will allow a wider range of content — eventually including "erotica" — now that OpenAI has completed work to enable the chatbot to better handle mental health issues, CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday.

The move could boost OpenAI as it seeks to sign up consumers for paid subscriptions, but it's also likely to increase pressure on lawmakers to enact meaningful regulations. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an X post that OpenAI plans to allow ChatGPT to have more personality and fulfill previously blocked requests.

"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," Altman said. "As part of our 'treat adult users like adults' principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults," he added, though that would come around December.

The move comes as lawmakers are eyeing tighter restrictions on chatbot companions. "We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues," Altman said in the post. 

"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."

OpenAI was not immediately available for comment.