Published: 5:20am, 15 Oct 2025Updated: 5:43am, 15 Oct 2025
OpenAI announced plans on Tuesday to relax restrictions on its ChatGPT chatbot, including allowing erotic content for verified adult users as part of what the company calls a “treat adult users like adults” principle.
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In a social media post, CEO Sam Altman said that stricter guardrails on conversational AI to address mental health concerns had made its chatbot “less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems”.
The stricter safety controls came after California teenager Adam Raine died by suicide earlier this year, with his parents filing a lawsuit claiming ChatGPT provided him with specific advice on how to kill himself.
The US Federal Trade Commission also launched an inquiry into several tech companies including OpenAI over how AI chatbots potentially negatively affect children and teenagers.
“Given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right,” Altman said on Tuesday, arguing that OpenAI’s new safety tools now allow the company to ease restrictions while still addressing serious mental health risks.
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OpenAI’s plan includes the release of an updated version of ChatGPT that will allow users to customise their AI assistant’s personality, including options for more humanlike responses, heavy emoji use, or friend-like behaviour.