OpenAI will allow mature content, including erotica, to verified adult users as of December

OpenAI will allow mature content for adult ChatGPT users who verify their age on the platform starting in December, CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday.

"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," Altman wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

Altman said that OpenAI had made ChatGPT "pretty restrictive" to make sure it was being careful with mental health issues, though that made the chatbot "less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems."

OpenAI has been able to mitigate mental health issues and has new tools, Altman said, which will allow it to safely relax restrictions in most cases.

In the coming weeks, OpenAI will release a version of ChatGPT that will allow people to better dictate the tone and personality of the chatbot, Altman said.

"If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing)," Altman said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Meta unveiled enhanced restrictions for users of Instagram who are under 18, which will filter out content that's more advanced than what you'd see in a PG-13 movie.

This comes after OpenAI introduced new parental controls, which would prevent their chatbot from taking part in flirtatious conversations or ones about suicide or self-harm with people under 18 years of age. That announcement followed the suicide death of a teenager who had been speaking with ChatGPT for months and a lawsuit by the boy's family.

The company said they were building an age-prediction system that would estimate a user's age based on how they use ChatGPT, and place certain restrictions on users they believe to be under 18.