We all know ChatGPT. What about SextGPT?
On Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X that the company is adopting a new principle of "treating adult users like adults." As part of that policy, he said ChatGPT will roll out age-gated "erotica" for verified users in December.
Altman said that OpenAI previously made ChatGPT "pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues."
"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," he wrote.
Altman has previously signaled hesitancy around sexually explicit use of AI. Two months ago, Altman told Cleo Abram that there were several decisions that could "juice growth and revenue," but that don't align with OpenAI's values. Abrams asked for an example.
"We haven't put a sex-bot avatar in ChatGPT yet," Altman said.
Abram said that it "does seem like it would get time spent." Altman responded, "Apparently it does."
Some of OpenAI's competitors have already made the jump into erotica. In June, Elon Musk's xAI released Ani, a lingerie-wearing anime girl companion. One user told Business Insider that he fell in love with Ani.
Grok Imagine, xAI's video generator, also launched a "spicy" mode where users can disrobe images of people.
While ChatGPT has historically barred sexual conversations, many users already discuss love and romance with the chatbot. Some users draft messages to loved ones with the chatbot, or ask it to analyze their text conversations.
In September, OpenAI released a study about how people use ChatGPT. It showed that 1.9% of ChatGPT messages were about "relationships and personal reflections."
