Ryan Knudson

The Choose Your Own Adventure game was called AI Dungeon.

Not safe for work.

OpenAI noticed that not only were users choosing sexual adventures, the AI also seemed to like to push the boundaries.

AI Dungeon forced OpenAI's executives to start reckoning with the existence of AI erotica, and the company decided to take AI Dungeon down.

Oh, no.

So when OpenAI launched ChatGPT, it decided to basically ban explicit sexual content by training the model to largely rebuff any sexual conversations with users.

Another thing people inside OpenAI were worried about when it came to AI erotica was that it might cause some users to become too attached to their chatbots.

A spokeswoman for OpenAI said the company trains its models not to encourage exclusive relationships with users and to remind users that they need to have relationships in the real world.

Not everyone at OpenAI agreed with the company's erotica ban, though.

Some thought that the company should let go of its inhibitions.

Another reason some people want to allow erotica on ChatGPT is because, well, sex sells.

And the company wants people to sign up for paid subscriptions.

Last August, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went on a podcast and was asked whether the company was making its decisions based on profit or based on what was best for humanity.

The host, Cleo Abram, then asked Altman to be more specific.

He took a long pause and then said, Well, we haven't put a sexbot avatar in ChatGPT yet.

That's part of the reason why it was so surprising when, just a few months later, OpenAI appeared to give in to that temptation.

In October, Altman made a post on X. He said that ChatGPT had restrictions on certain types of content in order to protect people's mental health, and that these restrictions had been necessary even if they'd made the chatbot less enjoyable for some people.

But Altman hadn't told everyone at OpenAI about the tweet before he posted it.

And when some learned that the company was changing its stance on erotica, they started ringing alarm bells.

That's next.