There’s no delicate way to say this, so I’ll just go for it: By December, human beings will be able to sext with robots using ChatGPT.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced a new “erotica” feature in a tweet on Tuesday.
This Twitter announcement has a lot packed into it, including the term “usage-maxxing” used in earnest by a 40-year-old dude. So, I’ll break down the different parts of Altman’s announcement to you.
Previous iterations of ChatGPT have caused a lot of discourse and critique. Mostly, there’s conversation about people creating unhealthy attachments to their chatbots, and how that problem should be handled on the company’s end. In some extreme cases, users are reportedly experiencing cases of AI psychosis, which is a term being used to describe “when AI use exacerbates existing mental health vulnerabilities.”
GPT-5 was released to much dissatisfaction from users who claim that the update made their experiences feel less personal because of modifications around safety and language that these models can use.
Even Altman said, in his tweet, that addressing those “mental health issues” meant that ChatGPT became more restrictive, therefore less enjoyable for users who “had no mental health problems.”
He says they’ve implemented new tools that will address those serious issues, which means that the new version of ChatGPT will allow for the bots to have more of a personality again.
The final part of this Twitter announcement is what everyone is talking about. Come December, age-verified users will have another new feature available to them: erotica.
Christmas has come (slightly) early! Well, Christmas has come early if you can prove you’re 18 and actually want to engage in sexual conversations with your ChatGPT bot. If you don’t want to have spicy conversations, you don’t have to, according to Altman.
Altman says this new feature is part of their “treat adult users like adults” principle. Meaning, if age-appropriate users want to sext with their ChatGPT bots, they can.
You may be thinking, “Huh, this sounds a lot like Her, the 2013 award-winning film starring Joaquin Phoenix, who falls in love with an artificial entity named Samantha!” If so, you are deeeeeeeefinitely not alone.
But the other joke E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E and their mothers are making is a reference to an article that came out almost a decade ago. “IT’S TIMEEEEE,” someone wrote.
About a decade ago, the Sun interviewed a “futurologist” who predicted that, by 2025, women would be having more sex with robots than men.
I guess sometimes the Oracle of Delphi is just a “futurologist” getting interviewed by the Sun! One tweet reads: “So they wasn’t lying about people having sex with robots in 10 years?????”
Many people had questions and concerns in the comments of Altman’s announcement, but other ChatGPT users seemed to be pretty pumped by this development, too. One user said: “about time… chatgpt used to feel like a person you could actually talk to, then it turned into a compliance bot. if it can be made fun again without losing the guardrails, that’s a huge win. people don’t want chaos, just authenticity.”
Others are NOT as thrilled about the announcement. One tweet says: “We are doomed as a society.”
Another reads: “we are inventing levels of Loserdom previously unknown to mankind.”
Others are pointing out how much the vision for AI has seemingly changed.
As of right now, it’s unclear just how far these erotic chats will go, or exactly how this update will be implemented, but one thing is for sure — people already have thoughts. What do you think? Are you down to talk dirty with some bots, or vehemently against it? Let us know in the comments below.