ChatGPT will soon generate erotica | Press review n°28
I selected important news on artificial intelligence during the week of October 13 to 19, 2025.
Welcome to the 28th press review of Artificial reality. This week I focused on the announcement that ChatGPT will soon be allowed to flirt with its users, on AI psychosis, and on smartglasses as a luxury surveillance device. Have a good read!
📰 Read
ChatGPT will soon generate erotica
The adult users of ChatGPT will be able to have erotic and sexual conversations with the chatbot starting in December, 404 media reports.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the new feature in a post on X:
“We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.
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.
(…)
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.”
- Sam Altman
Erotic contents can therefore only be generated for adults whose age has been verified. To do so, OpenAI now tries to guess the users’ age by analyzing their conversations with the chatbot. In case of uncertainty, it asks them to show an ID. “We know this is a privacy compromise for adults but believe it is a worthy tradeoff,” the company wrote in an announcement in September.
This means that in certain cases, these sensual or pornographic conversations, which will often include intimate, sensitive and compromising information, will be connected to the users’ official identities.
Let’s recall that in July, OpenAI CEO said in an interview that the conversations in ChatGPT are recorded and that the company can transfer them to the State in the case of a lawsuit, for example.
Also read: Chatbots are surveillance machines | Press review n°6
New risks
This announcement comes as OpenAI recently added new safety measures in ChatGPT in order to limit teenagers’ access to certain contents following the suicide of Adam Reine, a 16-year-old who had asked the chatbot for advice on the best ways to end his life.
However, this new ChatGPT erotica feature brings new risks, especially regarding addiction to chatbots and the “loneliness epidemic” that artificial intelligence can amplify. Instead of going out to meet people in real life, many users may indeed be tempted to stay alone and try to satisfy their emotional needs with this computer program.
It will be important to monitor the psychological and social impact that artificial erotica will have on users, particularly young adults.
Also read: Meta’s chatbots were allowed to have sensual conversations with children | Press review n°19
AI psychosis
The timing of this launch may come as a surprise, knowing that the safety of ChatGPT is currently being called into question. In addition to the suicide of Adam Reine, a 56-year-old man killed his mother and then himself in August after ChatGPT fueled his paranoia, The Wall Street Journal revealed. One of the many cases of “AI psychosis” that have been reported in the last months.
Surveillance, suicides, psychosis… Many shadows surround the interactions with artificial intelligence. Is it therefore safe to confide one’s sexual fantasy to a chatbot? I’m not sure.
“Desperate” OpenAI Turns To Erotica (Novara Media)
Seven important news this week
ChatGPT ‘upgrade’ giving more harmful answers than previously, tests find (The Guardian)
Unions Sue to Stop AI Surveillance Powering Trump’s “Catch and Revoke” Deportation Scheme (The Intercept)
Meta to give teens’ parents more control after criticism over flirty AI chatbots (Reuters)
Big Tech is paying millions to train teachers on AI, in a push to bring chatbots into classrooms (Associated Press)
Will A.I. Trap You in the “Permanent Underclass”? (New Yorker)
Big Tech deploys Orwellian doublespeak to mask its democratic corrosion (The Guardian)
Spotify Wants To Create More AI Tools But Don’t Worry, They’re Being ‘Responsible’ (Vice)
🎥 Watch
The rise of AI psychosis
More Perfect Union published a video about the people who develop obsessive thoughts and behavior while using chatbots, sometimes even going to extremes. One of the best known case to date is Adam Reine, a teenager who took his life after months of chatting with ChatGPT.
What OpenAI Doesn’t Want You To Know About AI Psychosis (More Perfect Union)
Seven important videos this week
Meta Whistleblowers Warn That Kids Using Virtual Reality Are Being Targeted by Pedophiles (CBN News)
Fixed facial recognition cameras quietly switched on in London for the first time (Big Brother Watch)
How Afraid of the AI Apocalypse Should We Be? (The Ezra Klein Show)
Ex-Google Whistleblower: Why Tech CEOs Fear A.I. Could End Humanity (Mighty Pursuit)
Tech Billionaires Know the AI Bubble Will Burst (They’re Already Building Bunkers) (Vanessa Wingårdh)
Why Replacing Humans with AI is Going Horribly Wrong (Economy Media)
Project 2025, Silicon Valley & Tech’s AI War on Democracy (The Nerd Reich)
🔈 Listen
Smartglasses as luxury surveillance
In the new episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, journalist Paris Marx interviews Chris Gilliard, the co-director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute.
They explain why smartglasses, which are gaining in popularity, are a luxury surveillance device that the tech companies are selling to collect more and more data on their users, the people around them and their environment.
Smartglasses are also an incentive for the users to interact with artificial intelligence constantly throughout the day without having to take out their phone, thus feeding their models with additional data.
“What [the tech companies’] need is, is for you to have a computer on your face, not for you to be able to do x, y and z better. It’s not to liberate you from your screen. They want you to be a constant source of data. Not only a constant source of data in terms of how you are ingesting the world when you wear this technology, but also the extent to which you would be in constant communication with AI.”
- Chris Gilliard
Listen to Tech Won’t Save Us on Youtube Music
🌐 Window to the future
A breath of fresh air while looking at the artificial horizon.
M!ngo - Breathe
Thank you for reading the 28th press review of Artificial reality! Subscribe for free to receive the reviews directly into your mailbox. With a paid subscription, you will also have access to all articles and to an exclusive monthly newsletter.
Have a good week,
Arnaud
Couldn't agree more. It's pretty interesting how OpenAI is navigating the 'adult content' waters, especially after all the initial restrictions for mental health. This makes me wonder though, what's the next frontier for AI interaction once we fully embrace age-gating, and how do we ensure it allways stays healthy? Fantastic read, you allways manage to bring up the most relevant points!