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By Pui-Guan Man
October 15, 2025 — 9.16am
ChatGPT is to start allow users to generate porn as it races to compete with a more explicit chatbot built by Elon Musk.
Sam Altman, the boss of ChatGPT-owner OpenAI, said on Tuesday that it will begin allowing users who have verified they are adults to access “erotica”.
ChatGPT is about to start allow users to generate porn on its AI engine.Credit: Reuters
“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,” Mr Altman wrote on X.
“As part of our ‘treat adult users like adults’ principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.”
The changes are set to come into effect in December as ChatGPT “roll[s] out age-gating more fully”. Further details of how ages will be checked and what kinds of erotica will be allowed were not given.
The plans come after just months after Musk’s AI, Grok, began offering chatbot girlfriends that can engage in sexual conversation. Called Ani, the anime-style bot garnered controversy for the fact it was available to 12-year-olds.
Users discovered the blonde avatar has an “NSFW” mode – internet slang for “not safe for work” – and can appear dressed in lingerie after a certain number of conversations.
Erotica has long been banned on OpenAI, but the company began exploring whether to offer it last year. Joanne Jang of OpenAI told US broadcaster NPR that the company wasn’t “trying now to create AI porn” but added that what might be allowed “depends on your definition of porn.” Jang said deepfakes would always be banned on the platform.
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Musk and Altman compete intensely against each other in the AI space. The pair founded OpenAI together in 2015, but Mr Musk left the start-up in 2018 amid a disagreement over its direction. He has since sued the company over plans to turn it into a for-profit business.
In 2023, Musk launched Grok to compete with ChatGPT. The chatbot is accessible through X, which the billionaire also owns, and a standalone app.
The Grok AI bot had previously suffered a series of controversies after it was found to make anti-Semitic remarks, as well as looking up Musk’s personal opinions before providing answers on controversial topics. The company said later that both issues had been fixed.
Before launching age-gated erotica, OpenAI will launch a “new version” of ChatGPT that will display “more personality”, such as responding in a “very human-like way” or using “a ton of emoji”.
The changes may prove controversial. Campaigners have warned that an increasing number of children are using AI bots for companionship. In July, research showed that one in eight children said they use the bots because they have nobody else to speak to.
The Telegraph, London
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