What will human and AI interaction look like with OpenAI's introduction of adult content?

The policy shift is part of what the company calls its effort to “treat adult users like adults.”

In a post on X on Tuesday, October 14, Altman said the change will follow the rollout of stricter age verification measures, which will ensure users are over 18 before accessing adult or explicit material. The company has not yet detailed how the verification process will work.

The move marks a significant change for OpenAI, which tightened ChatGPT’s restrictions earlier this year after concerns about how the chatbot responded to users in mental distress. Those changes, Altman said, had made the service “less useful or enjoyable” for users without mental health challenges.

He added that OpenAI has since developed new tools to mitigate mental health risks and can now “safely relax restrictions in most cases.”

“If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it),” Altman said.

OpenAI says the changes are designed to balance creative freedom with safety, particularly as the company continues to expand its user base.

The company launched a dedicated version of ChatGPT for minors in September, which automatically blocks explicit material and redirects underage users to age-appropriate content.

The stricter content policies earlier this year followed controversy after the death of Adam Raine, a California teenager whose family alleged in a lawsuit that ChatGPT had given him harmful advice before he took his own life.

Altman said OpenAI learned from that experience and aims to maintain strong safeguards while restoring some of the flexibility users had lost.