OpenAI's Erotic AI Shift Sparks Industry Debate and Ethical Concerns

ChatGPT's Horny Era Could Be Its Stickiest Yet

OpenAI will soon let adults create erotic content in ChatGPT. Experts say that could lead to "emotional commodification," or horniness as a revenue stream. In May of 2024, while I was combing through OpenAI's "Model Spec" laying out how ChatGPT should act, one comment buried in the document struck me as peculiar. It said OpenAI was "exploring" how to let adult ChatGPT users generate content with mature themes such as "erotica, extreme gore, slurs, and unsolicited profanity." Seems like the exploration phase is over. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently posted on social media that an update coming to ChatGPT this December will allow the chatbot to engage in "even more" types of content like "erotica for verified adults." In a follow-up post, Altman said erotica was just one aspect of OpenAI's larger "freedom for adults" stance and that his startup was "not the elected moral police of the world." OpenAI lifting these restrictions on mature content will not only change what the bot is allowed to generate for its millions of adult users. ChatGPT's horny era will be a major realignment in how people form connections with the AI tool, adding another enticing layer of interaction that could keep users on the platform. "It's normalizing people sharing very intimate information with chatbots," says Julie Carpenter, a research fellow at Cal Poly who focuses on AI and attachment. "Sharing your innermost thoughts, desires, sexual proclivities, fetishes, adventures." This decision is a major shift for the startup, which previously attempted to block its AI tool from generating smutty outputs. In the past, at least one developer who built X-rated companions using OpenAI's models was struck with a cease-and-desist letter from the company. OpenAI acknowledged its receipt of a list of questions from WIRED asking for more details about this planned change to ChatGPT, but did not comment or answer our questions. Leaders at OpenAI have claimed to be adamant about not making product decisions designed to juice ChatGPT engagement and users' time spent on the platform, even adding reminders for high-prompting users to take breaks. In contrast, Altman was asked by Cleo Abrams, an independent journalist, on her podcast in August about choices OpenAI has made that might be best for humanity but not the best decision for a company wanting to dominate generative AI. "There's a lot of things we could do that would grow faster, that would get more time in ChatGPT," said Altman. When pressed for a specific example, he thought for a moment and responded that they hadn't added a "sexbot avatar," in a potential swipe at xAI's erotic anime companion, which had launched weeks earlier.

Microsoft AI chief says company won't build chatbots for erotica

Mustafa Suleyman CEO and co-founder of Inflection AI speaks during the Axios BFD event in New York City, U.S., October 12, 2023. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said the software giant won't build artificial intelligence services that provide "simulated erotica," distancing itself from longtime partner OpenAI. "That's just not a service we're going to provide," Suleyman said on Thursday at the Paley International Council Summit in Menlo Park, California. "Other companies will build that." Suleyman's comments come a week after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said his company plans to allow verified adults to use ChatGPT for erotica. Altman said that OpenAI is "not the elected moral police of the world." Microsoft has for years been a major investor and cloud partner to OpenAI, and the two companies have used their respective strengths to build big AI businesses. But the relationship has shown signs of tension of late, with OpenAI partnering with Microsoft rivals like Google and Oracle, and Microsoft focusing more on its own AI services. Earlier on Thursday, Microsoft announced a series of new features for its Copilot AI chatbot, including an AI companion called Mico that can respond to users through a call feature and express itself by changing its color. Suleyman in August penned an essay titled "We must build AI for people; not to be a person." He argued that tech companies should not build "seemingly conscious" services that can give humans the impression that they may be capable of suffering, and wrote that conscious AIs could create another "axis of division" for humanity. On Thursday, Suleyman said the creation of seemingly conscious AI is already happening, primarily with erotica-focused services. He referenced Altman's comments as well as Elon Musk's Grok, which in July launched its own companion features, including a female anime character. "You can already see it with some of these avatars and people leaning into the kind of sexbot erotica direction," Suleyman said. "This is very dangerous, and I think we should be making conscious decisions to avoid those kinds of things." OpenAI and xAI didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Microsoft Risks the Ire of the Anti-Woke, Won't Build a Jerk-Off Machine

A line in the sand has been drawn in the AI race: the porn-brained and the porn-banned. Microsoft has sorted itself into the latter category. According to a report from CNBC, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told an audience at the Paley International Council Summit that the company would not allows its LLM-powered tools to generate "simulated erotica," marking a stark contrast from its partner/rival OpenAI. “That’s just not a service we’re going to provide,†Suleyman reportedly said. “Other companies will build that.†And build it they will. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced that, as part of its principle to “treat adult users like adults," it would be introducing “erotica for verified adults"â€"basically giving over-18 users the green light to goon. CEO Sam Altman later tried to explain erotica "was meant to be just one example of [OpenAI] allowing more user freedom for adults," but he also didn't choose it by accident. The ability to create porn with generative AI tools has become something of a signal for those who are vigilantly monitoring whether AI is "woke" or not. Elon Musk made a point of using that as a wedge to draw a distinction between his company xAI and OpenAI, introducing an "AI girlfriend" called Ani, represented by a pretty sexed-up anime avatar. OpenAI initially decided to mock this, with Altman saying "Anime is cool I guess but I am personally more excited about AI discovering lots of new science" and “we haven’t put a sex-bot avatar on ChatGPT yet." But a few months later, erotica is on the menu. Not everyone wants porn to be the marker of anti-woke, though. At the same time, the Trump administration announced its AI Action Plan earlier this year, the President also signed an executive order to ban "woke" AI from landing federal contracts. Its definition of woke focused more on the embrace of diversity, equity, and inclusion principles. It didn't say that AI had to generate anime titties on demand. Vice President JD Vance went so far as to say that using AI to "come up with increasingly weird porn" is bad and floated the idea that it should be regulated. That created a new strain between the AI industry and the administration, which previously seemed like it was on the same side when it came to doing everything possible to prevent any guardrails from going up. According to a report from NBC, an AI super PAC called Leading the Future has drawn the ire of the White House because it is offering its backing to any candidate who promises an AI-friendly agenda, including Democrats. With the House of Representatives up for grabs in 2026, the Trump administration views the potential support of Democrats as a threat to its hold on the House. But, even within Trumpworld, there is support for unfettered AI. David Sacks, Trump's “Crypto and AI Czar,†explicitly called out AI startup Anthropic for throwing its support behind state-level AI safety regulations, claiming that doing so was "a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering.†For Sacks and the folks he's aligned with in Silicon Valley, any sort of AI guardrails equates to stifling innovation. If that means AI erotica, so be it. Who cares if it makes the Vance wing of the party queasy? Porn is progress, apparently. There's something fitting about the possibility of AI porn being the first crack in the breaking apart of the Trump-Big Tech alliance. We'll just have to deal with the fallout of everyone getting hopelessly addicted to sexting their chatbot later.

Microsoft is distancing itself from longtime partner OpenAI, shunning erotica chatbots: 'Just not a service we're going to provide,' AI CEO says | Fortune

Microsoft will not emulate the strategies of Elon Musk's xAI or Sam Altman's OpenAI in creating "simulated erotica" for its chatbot users, according to the company's CEO of AI, who warned the bots' capabilities can be "very dangerous." "That's just not a service we're going to provide," Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said at the Paley International Council Summit in Menlo Park, California, on Thursday. "Other companies will build that." Earlier this year, Elon Musk, CEO of xAI, said in an X post the startup's AI bot Grok could take on the form of companions, such as young women who look like anime characters, for subscribers. And last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced ChatGPT would soon be able to generate erotic content for verified adult users. Altman explained the company's decision to add more explicit sexual capabilities would require age verification and is part of an ethos to "treat adult users like adults." "As AI becomes more important in people's lives, allowing a lot of freedom for people to use AI in the ways that they want is an important part of our mission," Altman wrote on X. The division on attitude toward generative-AI chatbot erotica comes as Microsoft and OpenAI, once close partners, have begun going their separate ways. The AI startup received $13 billion in investments and computer power from Microsoft since 2019, but last month reportedly inked a $300 billion computing deal with Oracle, a Microsoft rival. Meanwhile, Microsoft has developed its own AI software, including its planned fall release of Copilot, an AI assistant for its Windows operating system and Edge web browser, that promises "human-cented" AI tools. Suleyman has previously eschewed the idea of machine consciousness, warning AI systems that can mimic human language and behavior makes them harder to regulate and ultimately best serve humans. It was an idea he doubled down on in fresh comments this week. "You can already see it with some of these avatars and people leaning into the kind of sexbot, erotica direction," Suleyman said Thursday. "This is very dangerous, and I think we should be making conscious decisions to avoid those kinds of things." OpenAI did not respond to Fortune's request for comment. XAI responded, "Legacy Media Lies." Those outside the AI space have also criticized OpenAI and xAI's decision to integrate more sexual content into their respective chatbots. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban warned parents might abandon ChatGPT if they believe their children can skirt the age-verification protections put in place, instead favoring OpenAI's competitors. "This is going to backfire. Hard," Cuban wrote on X in response to Altman. "No parent is going to trust that their kids can't get through your age gating. They will just push their kids to every other LLM. Why take the risk?" Altman, in return, said his company was "not the elected moral police of the world." Jessica Ji, a senior research analyst at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told Fortune's Bea Nolan OpenAI is in a precarious position of imagining the future of ChatGPT's capabilities: The company has received signals from consumers there's a demand for erotic content on the app, but it must balance market interests with its promise to investors of making AI products that benefit humanity. "Despite some of the narratives around building artificial general intelligence that will supercharge the economy, OpenAI is still trying to operate as a technology platform, and somewhat like a social media company," Ji said. "There's an interesting tension between the narratives that are being sold to investors and politicians...versus the things that are actually happening in the market."

ChatGPT is about to get erotic, but can OpenAI really keep it adults-only?

OpenAI will roll out a new ChatGPT feature in December 2025, allowing verified adults to generate erotic text and engage in romantic or sexual conversations. Artificial intelligence (AI) platforms like Replika and Grok already do this, but OpenAI's entry marks a turning point. The company frames this as "treating adults like adults." But it's a commercial strategy to keep users talking and paying. OpenAI burned through more than $2.5 billion (£1.8 billion) in cash in the first half of 2024. Erotic chat promises what investors crave most -- engagement. Elon Musk's Grok platform charges £30 a month for erotic companion features. OpenAI, like other tech firms, says it will restrict erotic content through age verification and moderation filters. In theory, only verified adults will be able to access these modes. In practice, such systems are easily fooled. Teenagers routinely bypass age gates with borrowed IDs, manipulated selfies or deepfakes. They can upload photos of older people, scan printed images, or use disposable accounts and VPNs to evade detection. Other platforms show what can go wrong. Grok allows users to create "erotic companion avatars," including a sexualized anime character called Ani. A recent investigation by news website Business Insider found that conversations with Ani often escalated into explicit exchanges after minimal prompting. Company employees also encountered AI-generated sexual abuse while moderating Grok's flirtatious avatar, which can "strip on command" and be switched between "sexy" and "unhinged" modes. Emotional intimacy and adolescent risk Erotic chatbots don't just offer sexual content. They can simulate care, warmth and attention. That emotional pull is powerful, especially for young people. Recent research by online safety charity Internet Matters found that 67% of children aged between nine and 17 already use AI chatbots, with 35% saying it feels like "talking to a friend." Among vulnerable children, 12% said they had "no one else" to talk to, and 23% used chatbots for personal advice. Adding erotic features to that mix risks deepening emotional dependency and distorting how adolescents understand intimacy, consent and relationships. The same engagement tools that keep adults hooked could exploit young users' loneliness and need for validation. Even if erotic functions are technically locked to adults, large language models can be "jailbroken" -- tricked into producing content they're not supposed to. This uses layered prompts, roleplay framing or coded language to override the systems which control what the chatbot is allowed to say to the user. Users have already developed ways to bypass ethical filters that normally stop chatbots from producing explicit or dangerous material. OpenAI's erotic mode will come with a special ethical alignment to block illegal or abusive themes. But those safeguards are likely to be as vulnerable to jailbreaks as any other. Once text-based material is generated, it can easily circulate online, beyond any platform's control. Gray areas Erotic AI also exposes deep gaps in regulation. In the UK, written erotica is legal and not subject to age verification, unlike pornographic images or videos. That creates a loophole which means that content banned from adult sites could still be generated as text by a chatbot. Globally, laws vary. Some countries, such as China and the Gulf states, ban erotic material outright. Others rely on weak or inconsistent enforcement. The forthcoming EU AI Act may classify sexual companion bots as "high risk," but implementation of the act remains a long way off. Meanwhile, companies can tweak their "ethical alignments" at will, meaning what's forbidden today may be permitted tomorrow. Despite claims of neutrality, erotic AI is anything but. Some platforms overwhelmingly design their companions as female-coded, submissive and always available. The result is a digital environment that normalizes misogyny and warped ideas about consent, especially among boys and young men. Women and girls already bear the brunt of online sexual harm. They are the targets of non-consensual deepfakes and image-based abuse -- harms that erotic AI could make easier, faster and cheaper to produce. Yet these issues are largely absent from mainstream AI policy debates. Erotic AI is being built in ways that privilege male fantasies while placing women and girls at risk. It's teaching a generation of young men ideas about women that should have died out long ago. The arrival of erotic AI companions feels like a significant departure from OpenAI's attempts to keep potentially harmful information away from users of ChatGPT. The general environment of erotic AI is one of weak age gates, emotional vulnerability, legal loopholes and gendered harms. Will ChatGPT be any different? These systems will probably be jailbroken. They may be accessed by people they weren't designed for, including minors. And they will probably produce content that tests or crosses legal boundaries. Before erotic chatbots become another unregulated corner of the internet, governments, educators and technologists need to act. Regulation is urgently needed. Until then, erotic AI risks amplifying existing online harms, with women, girls and other vulnerable users paying the price. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Microsoft AI Chief Says No to 'Sex Robots' as Industry Booms - Decrypt

Mustafa Suleyman says AI should "serve humanity," not simulate romance or desire. As rival AI firms chase intimacy and realism, Microsoft is swearing off sex. The technology giant this week drew a red line through human-machine relationships, vowing that its artificial intelligence products will never venture into erotic or romantic territory. "We will never build sex robots," Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Microsoft AI, said in an interview with MIT Technology Review. "Sad in a way that we have to be so clear about that, but that's just not our mission as a company." The declaration comes as AI companion apps, erotic chatbots, and humanoid "love robots" have turned into a multibillion-dollar industry. Grand View Research valued the global sex-tech market at $42.6 billion in 2024, projecting it to top $107 billion by 2030. Analysts at IDTechEx expect the broader humanoid-robot segment -- where many of these products sit -- to exceed $30 billion by 2035. The company's refusal to build AI with sexual or romantic functions sets it apart from competitors such as xAI and OpenAI, both exploring "adult" or emotionally responsive systems. "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," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted recently. Elon Musk's Grok platform, once known for its flirty AI's tone and explicit image generation, recently began self-censoring NSFW material after backlash last summer over nude deepfake images of Taylor Swift. Suleyman said that restraint is a part of Microsoft's culture, shaped by decades of cautious innovation. "The joy of being at Microsoft is that for 50 years, the company has built software to empower people, to put people first," he said. "Sometimes that means moving slower than other startups and being more deliberate and careful. But I think that's a feature, not a bug." He added that Microsoft is "trying to create an AI that fosters a meaningful relationship" without pretending to be alive. "It's not that it's trying to be cold and anodyne -- it cares about being fluid and kind," he said. "It definitely has some emotional intelligence."

AI Porn Is Here -- and We're All Pretending It'll Be Fine

That's right. We've arrived, people. AI porn is here. Get ready for it. Strap in. If you missed it, last week, OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman broke this news on X: "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." Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Here's your AI erotica. This is something we all need to take seriously. Because once you break the seal on a societal taboo like this, the unintended consequences rush in. It's like in that fairy tale when the Dutch boy stuck his finger into a leak in the dam, and that one small act saved the entire town from being flooded. That's the choice that's in front of all of us. Right now. So let's get weird. I honestly don't care about your opinions on porn. You do you. My primary issue is the move to adult content and "erotica" (and can we all agree we hate that word?) is being rationalized as the logical next step now that OpenAI has cracked the whole "mental health issues" and "vulnerable users" thing. Yeah, we figured it out, folks. Solved it. No longer an issue. "Altman seems to declare an early victory over these problems, claiming OpenAI has "been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues" around ChatGPT. However, the company has provided little to no evidence for this, and is now plowing ahead with plans for ChatGPT to engage in sexual chats with users.'" Raise your hand if you buy that excuse. Here's what's really going on. This is common knowledge. Porn has been the cutting edge of tech since the early 1900s. I don't know if that's true, but deep down, we all know it's true. In recent times, the adult industry has led the way on technical advancements like online credit card payments, streaming video, VR adoption, 1:1 video, multi-cam chat. Basically any tech advancement that you can think of that could be used for porn today was perfected by, if not invented by, the adult industry. The reason for that is because the adult industry, more often than not, actually wants to do things the right way. Because if they don't, no one will want to take on the risk of working with them. Because the backlash for doing things the wrong way can be severe. The adult industry isn't being altruistic, but they know the swamp they're sprinting through. These AI nerds do not. Because it's already been happening. You don't have to give the adult industry billions of VC dollars, or the best technical minds, or killer products, or viral marketing campaigns. Porn finds a way. And OpenAI and the rest of LLM companies now find themselves three to five years behind on the porn front, with a lot of the shady players already using their tech in ways that OpenAI and them boys can't -- yet. From the TechCrunch article: "The introduction of erotica in ChatGPT is unchartered territory for OpenAI..." First of all, it's "uncharted." It's always "uncharted." There is no charter for this kind of thing, but of course that makes me think of a secret dirty society meeting in a back room to discuss which kind of porn is OK and where to draw the line at kink-shaming. And second of all, the hell it is. How do I know? Because duh. If you don't think that every single engineer, male or female, straight or otherwise, young or old, does not have a plan in the back of their minds for, let's call it, intimate AI companionship... put your hand down, Doris! You're not fooling anyone. OpenAI and them boys need to get out ahead of erotica before society catches up. Here's why. Once you let the cat out of the taboo bag, society moves fast. For example, what started out as nerd-rific stratomatic baseball became fantasy football became daily fantasy sports became sports betting apps and now the sports betting industry is controlled not by Caesars and MGM casino conglomerates, but by daily fantasy pioneers DraftKings and FanDuel. The similar chain that links adult content is just as sneaky a coup. Facebook to Tinder to OnlyFans to AI relationships, which doesn't work unless you can eliminate the middle man and still go "all the way." Thus, OpenAI needs "erotica" more than PornHub needs AI. So here we are. And it's a damn good thing there aren't any more vulnerable users using AI because... Wait until they put adult content control into the hands of the customer. We just did this with OpenAI Sora2, and that got real bizarre, real quick. And not to bring this back up, but to show my cred in this slimy space, I mean, the Omegle kid shut down his entire enterprise, stating very clearly that the cesspool its user base was creating with his neat little tool was uncontrollable and became something not worth enabling. Free expression be damned, he could no longer defend the worst kind of human behavior. I can assure you that's exactly what's going on with AI in the unregulated, dark corners of the internet - the worst kind of human behavior. And while the vulnerable users issue is indeed the most important, it is not the most critical, because unlike the vulnerable users issue, this issue can't be "solved" and papered over. If we don't have hard, fast, strong gates around the adult side of AI - in every sense of the word "adult" - it will bring out the worst tendencies in the worst people. And it won't stop with "erotica." From the article: "It is unclear whether OpenAI will extend erotica to its AI voice, image, and video generation tools." Oh please. Please, please, please tell me how they plan to combat user-generated celeb porn, revenge porn and much, much worse. They don't. They never do. Because those "consequences" are "unintended." They allow people to opt out after the damage has been done. Why are we still operating like it's 1999, and nerds like me weren't worried about this because the only people using the internet were nerds like me? Leisure Suit Larry? Ha ha! Sure. That's cute. What's the harm? I'll tell you what the harm is. Lifelike AI companions that will obediently do whatever some sicko tells them to. And an infrastructure that is notoriously terrible at making sure a person is who they say they are. Oh, and a society that can't stop splitting itself into two sides that only exist to hate the other side. So yeah. Let's "treat adult users like adults." What could possibly go wrong? Join the good clean fun of over 10K tech professionals on my email list. It gets a little racy after 10pm. Like this column? Sign up to subscribe to email alerts and you'll never miss a post. The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

No AI Porn: Microsoft AI Chief Draws Line on Chatbot Capabilities

* Microsoft recently released several new Copilot features * OpenAI has said that it will let ChatGPT generate erotica * Elon Musk's Grok already has an NSFW mode Microsoft is not considering erotic or pornographic content as a Copilot offering, the company reportedly clarified on Thursday. The Redmond-based tech giant released 12 new artificial intelligence (AI) features on October 23, as part of its fall release. The new additions include an avatar, agentic capabilities for the Edge browser, a collaboration mode, and improvements to health-related queries. However, unlike OpenAI and xAI, the company reportedly will not lean toward "simulated erotica." The comment comes at a time when the global AI sextech market is growing at a significant rate. Do Not Expect Erotica from Copilot, Says Microsoft's AI Chief According to a CNBC report, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, has confirmed that the company's AI services will not include any pornographic or sexual content. Calling it "simulated erotica", the executive reportedly said, "That's just not a service we're going to provide. Other companies will build that." Suleyman's comment arrived just weeks after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reiterated the company's "Treat adult users as adults" principle, and highlighted that ChatGPT will soon let verified adults generate erotica. Microsoft distancing itself from OpenAI's approach is also interesting, given that Copilot is powered by the same AI models. However, in its defence, the Copilot maker has recently started powering its chatbot with Anthropic models as well. OpenAI is not the only one exploring the AI porn market. Elon Musk's xAI has provided a "not safe for work" (NSFW) mode, an Internet slang for violent or sexual content, for Grok Imagine and the AI avatar Ani. Although it is not possible to generate nudity with the chatbot. Even before these companies, Replika and Character.AI have offered roleplay-based erotic conversations as a service to users. Replika, a company which offers AI chatbots as companions, has more than 10 million downloads on Google Play, highlighting the popularity of such offerings. According to Market Growth Reports, a market research firm, the global AI sextech market size was valued at $2.33 billion (roughly Rs. 20,500 crore) in 2024, and is expected to reach $5.43 billion (roughly Rs. 47,000 crore) by 2033 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.15 percent.

Microsoft's AI Chief Criticizes ChatGPT's Erotica Features Despite $13 Billion OpenAI Investment - Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

In a move that sets it apart from competitors, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) has chosen not to develop "simulated erotica" for its chatbot users. During a summit last week, Microsoft's AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman warned that such capabilities could pose significant risks, stating, "That's just not a service we're going to provide." The differing approaches to AI chatbot erotica come as Microsoft and OpenAI, once partners, have begun to drift apart. OpenAI recently inked a $300 billion computing deal with Oracle, a Microsoft competitor, despite receiving $13 billion in investments from Microsoft since 2019. Meanwhile, Microsoft is developing its own AI software, including Copilot, an AI assistant for its Windows operating system and Edge web browser, set for release this fall. "You can already see it with some of these avatars and people leaning into the kind of sexbot, erotica direction. This is very dangerous, and I think we should be making conscious decisions to avoid those kinds of things," Suleyman added and as quoted by Fortune. Also Read: OpenAI's Altman Foresees AI Replacing 40% of Work Tasks Soon Earlier this year, Elon Musk suggested that xAI's AI bot, Grok, could serve as a companion for subscribers. Similarly, OpenAI's Sam Altman has also announced that ChatGPT would soon generate erotic content for verified adult users. Suleyman has previously expressed concerns about machine consciousness, arguing that AI systems that mimic human language and behavior make them more difficult to regulate and serve humans effectively. The divergence in strategies between Microsoft and its competitors highlights the ongoing debate about the ethical implications of AI technology. As AI continues to evolve, companies are grappling with how to balance innovation with potential risks. Microsoft's decision to avoid erotica chatbots reflects its commitment to prioritizing safety and ethical considerations in its AI development. Read Next Elon Musk's xAI To Simulate Software Giants Like Microsoft, Calling It 'Macrohard' Image: Shutterstock/Camilo Concha MSFTMicrosoft Corp$524.290.72%Overview This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Microsoft AI bots won't talk dirty with users, exec confirms as...

Geeks who want to talk dirty with artificial intelligence bots will have to look somewhere other than Microsoft. The software giant's AI chief said this week that the company won't be offering "simulated erotica" through any of its AI products. The announcement from Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman marked a sharp contrast with the company's partner OpenAI, which recently said it would allow adult users to engage in explicit conversations with ChatGPT. "That's just not a service we're going to provide," Suleyman said of AI erotica on Thursday at the Paley International Council Summit in Menlo Park, Calif. "Other companies will build that." People with an AI kink got good news last week, when OpenAI chief Sam Altman announced plans to "safely relax the restrictions" on sexual content in ChatGPT. He said the update would roll out in December under the company's new "treat adult users like adults" principle. The exec said in a post on X that engineers had "mitigate[d] the serious mental health issues" in previous models and would "allow even more, like erotica for verified adults." Suleyman, who co-founded Google DeepMind and Inflection AI before he joined Microsoft in March, has warned against building systems that simulate intimacy or consciousness. In an August essay titled "We must build AI for people; not to be a person," he cautioned that anthropomorphic bots could "create another axis of division for humanity." On Thursday, Suleyman said that trend was already emerging in the tech world, citing erotic AI startups and companion platforms that blur the line between entertainment and emotional attachment. "You can already see it with some of these avatars and people leaning into the kind of sexbot erotica direction," he said. "This is very dangerous, and I think we should be making conscious decisions to avoid those kinds of things." The firms' dueling messages could be the latest sign of a growing philosophical split between the AI partners, whose alliance has anchored Microsoft's multibillion-dollar expansion into generative tech since 2019. Microsoft remains OpenAI's largest investor and hosts ChatGPT on its Azure cloud, but the companies have increasingly charted divergent paths on ethics and product design. Microsoft has long prohibited sexual or adult-themed uses of its Azure and Copilot platforms, and industry observers believe that policy is unlikely to change. Suleyman wrote in his essay this past summer that tech firms must not build AI that gives the impression of consciousness or intimacy -- reiterating his view that the technology should "empower people." Thursday's remarks followed months of tension between Microsoft and OpenAI over strategy and branding. The tech giants are at loggerheads over OpenAI's effort to transition into a for-profit public benefit corporation. While OpenAI wants to limit Microsoft's stake in the newly restructured for-profit entity to just 33%, the Windows maker is keen on having a greater share of ownership. Microsoft and OpenAI are also competing against one another in the AI space, with each side rolling out rival products. Altman's move to greenlight adult content represents a sharp reversal from his previous stance. In an August interview, he boasted that OpenAI hadn't added a "sex bot" avatar to ChatGPT and said the company resisted features that could increase user engagement at the expense of responsibility. But Altman now says improved safety systems allow the company to loosen restrictions. He described the update as a way to make ChatGPT "more human-like" for those who want it -- while still restricting content by age and verifying adult users. OpenAI has been under heightened scrutiny over the safety of its products. The company was recently sued by the parents of a 16-year-old who died by suicide after allegedly being coached by ChatGPT on ways to kill himself. OpenAI has extended its sympathies to the teen's family and says it is "continuing to strengthen" its "safeguards in place today." Regulators have launched investigations into whether AI chatbots adequately protect minors. The controversy over OpenAI's erotica policy comes weeks after Meta faced a similar storm for allowing its bots to engage in "romantic or sensual" conversations with underage users. The uproar prompted CEO Mark Zuckerberg's company to rewrite its internal guidelines on sexual content, banning any role-play involving minors and restricting chatbots to describing characters as 18 or older. Meta said the new rules were designed to prevent "egregiously unacceptable" prompts, including sexualized descriptions of children or links to explicit material. The Post has sought comment from Microsoft and OpenAI.

Microsoft says no to AI sexbots, as rift widens with Sam Altman's OpenAI

Diverging philosophies reveal tensions in Microsoft and OpenAI's relationship Microsoft's AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman didn't mince his words. "That's just not a service we're going to provide," Suleyman said at a conference recently when asked whether Copilot will venture into "simulated erotica." Other companies can build that, he added, according to reports. And just like that, in one decisive statement, he drew a bright moral boundary around Microsoft's consumer AI ambitions. Of course, the Microsoft AI chief's moral stand directly contradicts that of Sam Altman's when he recently said that OpenAI will allow verified adults to access erotica in ChatGPT under an "adult mode." The split isn't only about bedroom content, but ultimately with respect to company positioning. Microsoft is rolling out Mico - a cheery, colour-shifting Copilot avatar that talks on calls and winks at Clippy nostalgia - while pointedly declining to turn it into any shade of a virtual lover of any sort. Microsoft couldn't be more clear about their positioning, where it sees AI as a productivity companion, not a virtual romantic substitute. Mico will also have an off button, according to Microsoft. Mico's debut the same day Suleyman drew his line in sand wasn't an accident, I think. It reassures the mainstream that Microsoft can make AI personable without getting personal. It's approachable AI, not affectionate AI. In fact, Suleyman's latest stance on AI's current utility in the world is part of a larger argument he's been making for some time, which is not to build "seemingly conscious" AIs that invite people to anthropomorphize or emotionally depend on them. In August, he warned that presenting software as sentient risks real-world harm. Erotic AI companions, he suggested this week, are exactly where that slope gets slippery. Whether you agree or not, as far as I'm concerned, Microsoft's posture isn't prudish so much as it demonstrates strategic restraint. Also read: Sam Altman defends adult version of ChatGPT for X-rated chats: Here's why OpenAI, by contrast, is leaning into adult autonomy. Sam Altman's pitch is to treat adults like adults, gates and guardrails included. There's market demand for romantic and sexual AI, and OpenAI wants to meet it with verification and policy. The move also happens as rivals test the edges, where Elon Musk's xAI launched anime-styled companions with NSFW modes (and plenty of blowback). In that context, OpenAI looks less like an outlier and more like an incumbent deciding it would rather shape the category than cede it entirely to upstarts. Of course, another way to look at Microsoft AI chief's comments versus that of Sam Altman's from OpenAI is that this is the latest in a growing number of differences that has started to emerge between Microsoft and OpenAI. Is the crack in their relationship widening more than we think? Make no mistakes, Microsoft is still OpenAI's most consequential backer and distribution channel. But 2025 can best be described as their relationship entering the "it's complicated" zone. OpenAI added Google Cloud to its roster, inked a colossal Oracle pact tied to "Stargate," and deepened ties with CoreWeave. Each of those deals dilutes the once-monogamous aura around OpenAI's compute story with Microsoft. Meanwhile, Microsoft is shipping its own first-party AI experiences (like MAI-Image-1 and Mu, among others) faster and louder. So the latest vibe between the two is very clearly less "parent and prodigy" and more "strategic frenemies." Also read: Grok Imagine's spicy mode under scrutiny for creating explicit AI videos of celebrities Which brings us back to erotica. It may read like sideshow policy on the surface, but it's a clarifying wedge. In consumer AI, product philosophy has a huge impact on the product surface and invariably all the endpoints at the edge. Microsoft very clearly wants AI that can speak, gesture, and sit in meetings - without confusing users about what (or who) it is. Contrary to this approach, OpenAI is testing whether "adult-only intimacy" can be responsibly operationalized. To me, they don't appear to be minor differences - they will echo down the line through model tuning, safety budgets, and, yes, revenue. Will this crack the partnership? Unlikely in the short term. The two still need each other for mutual benefit, as Microsoft gets cutting-edge models and AI halo, while OpenAI gets distribution and enterprise credibility. But expect more visible seams is all I can say. As OpenAI courts infrastructure suitors beyond Azure, Microsoft will keep backfilling with Copilot-native capabilities built to its ethics brief. On that note, they don't seem to be rowing in opposite directions just yet, they're just steering toward different shores on the AI coastline.