Sam Altman defends ChatGPT’s ‘Adult Mode’ plans, says OpenAI isn’t the ‘moral police of the world’

Technology

Sam Altman defends ChatGPT’s ‘Adult Mode’ plans, says OpenAI isn’t the ‘moral police of the world’ – Crypto News

Published

10 months ago

October 16, 2025

Dripp

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has issued a clarification on the upcoming Adult Mode for ChatGPT. Just a day earlier, Altman had announced that ChatGPT would soon allow for adult content including erotica for verified users, which had led to a lot of criticism on social media.

A day later, Altman clarified that the erotica example was only meant to be an example of how ChatGPT would allow more freedom to adult users while noting that the company is not the ‘elected moral police of the world.’

”This tweet about upcoming changes to ChatGPT blew up on the erotica point much more than I thought it was going to! It was meant to be just one example of us allowing more user freedom for adults,” Altman noted in a post on X.

”We are not loosening any policies related to mental health. This is a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection. We also care very much about the principle of treating adult users like adults,” he added.

Altman stated that OpenAI will still not allow things that would cause harm to others and treat users who have mental health crises very differently. He also noted that without being paternalistic, the company would attempt to help users achieve their long -term goals.

He added, “We are not the elected moral police of the world. In the same way that society differentiates other appropriate boundaries (R-rated movies, for example) we want to do a similar thing here.”

In his earlier post, Altman had admitted that OpenAI had made ChatGPT “pretty restrictive” to protect users from mental health risks, but this approach made the chatbot “less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems.”

He had also added that OpenAI has now “been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools” and will allow them to “safely relax the restrictions in most cases.”

The AI startup had announced earlier this month that it is developing age prediction technology to automatically apply teen -appropriate settings when users are identified as minors. Parents can also link their accounts with the teens’ accounts for more direct control and receive notifications when the system detects that their teen is in distress.

AI and adult content:

On the topic of adult content inside the AI chatbot, Altman had stated that the functionality would be opt-in and that users “won’t get it unless you ask for it.”

Notably, the use of AI for erotica has been a hotly contested topic in the AI space in the recent few weeks/months. Meta had received flak on social media recently after users reported seeing sexualized chatbots on Instagram like “Step Mom” and “Russian Girl.” Meanwhile, Elon Musk has also been at the receiving end of criticism over his Grok AI’s Ani character that came in a blonde, goth-anime-style avatar and appeared in lingerie while using provocative language in NSFW mode.

Grok AI has also been used to create erotica content that has been shared prominently on X in the last few weeks.