Treat Adult Users like Adults?

OpenAI just said they’re going to let verified adults use ChatGPT to generate erotic content, in what they’re literally calling a “treat adult users like adults” approach.

It comes with the promise of stronger age gates and a December rollout, plus some new options to tweak your chatbot’s personality so it can act more human, more emoji-happy, or more like a chatty friend.

If you’re thinking, “Wait, isn’t that a huge change for the most mainstream AI on the block?” You’re not wrong. It is. And yes, I read it twice, too.

Here’s the gist as I see it. OpenAI is basically saying: adults get to make adult choices, but only after proving they’re adults. The company hasn’t spelled out the exact verification method yet, which matters a lot, because sloppy age checks are how good ideas get roasted on the internet and in parliament at the same time.

The plan is to tighten the gates by December, allow erotic content for those who pass the check, and let everyone else, especially teens, get redirected to a safer, age-appropriate experience that blocks sexual material. That teen version actually launched in September. Think of it like the amusement park wristband system, except instead of a roller coaster it’s ChatGPT with PG versus R-rated filters.

OpenAI is also testing “behavior-based age prediction,” which tries to guess whether a user is over or under 18 based on how they interact. If that sounds like the digital equivalent of a bouncer squinting at your vibe, well, you’re not far off.

The company says it’s part of the broader safety work that lets them relax other rules without opening the floodgates to harm. You can already hear the debates, right? On one side: “This is sensible.” On the other: “Please define sensible, cite sources, and also don’t misclassify my grandma as a teenager because she uses too many commas.”

There’s a heavier backstory here. After a tragedy in California involving a teenager’s suicide and a subsequent lawsuit, OpenAI added stricter guardrails around mental health queries earlier this year.

Sam Altman said those controls made ChatGPT “less useful/enjoyable” for many users who didn’t have mental-health issues, and now the company believes it’s able to mitigate serious risks while lifting certain restrictions.

Regulators are paying attention, too. The US Federal Trade Commission has been looking into how chatbots affect children and teens. If OpenAI says “adults only” and the FTC hears “prove it,” then the whole plan lives or dies on whether the age checks and the teen redirection truly work.

In other words, the headline is spicy, but the homework is compliance. And compliance is just a fancy word for, “You better be right when someone checks.”

Now let me level with you like we’re in the same grocery aisle debating which almond milk actually tastes like anything. Do you think letting verified adults make erotic content with an AI is simply acknowledging what adults already do online, or do you worry it changes the vibe of a mainstream tool?

If you use ChatGPT for work, does this feel like your office Slack channel just added a nightclub in the basement? Or do you shrug and say, “It’s behind a bouncer; I’m just here for spreadsheets and dad jokes?” I’m genuinely curious where you land, because policy choices like this tend to ripple into product design, app-store rules, and what features show up by default.

Personally, I see two truths at once. One: adults deserve agency, and pretending grown-ups don’t ask for adult things on the internet is the kind of magical thinking that also leads to four-hour meetings. Two: the only version of this that works is the one where age verification is solid and the teen experience is actually locked down.

If that part fails, the story changes fast from “giving adults choices” to “how did that get through,” and none of us need another headline like that before our morning coffee.

Talk to me. What’s your gut reaction? If you’re nodding along, tell me why. If you’re rolling your eyes so hard you can see last week, tell me that too. Hit reply with a few lines, or better yet, pitch me a short article I can run on Credtrus AI: your take on how mainstream AI should handle adult content, where the lines should be, and how to keep teens safe without turning the adult internet into a DMV line.

Keep it real, keep it specific, and if your outline is sharp, I’ll share it with our readers so we can all argue like family at Thanksgiving.

If you made it this far, thanks for hanging out with me. You know I try to ask the questions we all whisper to ourselves in traffic: is this helpful, is this safe, and who checked the math? Now it’s your turn. What do you want the rules to be when the most popular chat app in the world decides it’s time to “treat adults like adults”? I’m listening.