OpenAI’s pivot to porn is problematic — but lucrative

WHEN you're building artificial intelligence (AI) to benefit humanity, you might have to compromise.

- By Parmy Olson

AI is expensive, so you raise billions of dollars from investors like Microsoft Corp., Nvidia Corp., and the United Arab Emirates. As you strive to build super-intelligent computers that will cure cancer, you also need to make money for your backers. So, after pitching your powerful chatbot technology to businesses, who struggle to make it useful, your next option may be monetizing your enormous user base of 800 million weekly visitors — with a sex bot.

That’s the ignoble trajectory of OpenAI under Sam Altman, who’s made a career of justifying opportunistic business moves — like inflating the AI bubble with circular dealmaking or releasing a TikTok clone — with the promise that his tech will eventually, one day, solve intractable human problems. There’s little evidence that OpenAT’s systems will do that, but in the short term it can make some money, especially with erotic roleplay.

This December, ChatGPT will be imbued with more personality and the ability to engage in “erotica” with verified adult users, Altman brazenly announced on X. The news was met with some repulsion on X but celebrated on Reddit, where many ChatGPT users have spent the last two years sharing tricks for jailbreaking the bot to sext with it.