OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is continuing to consider and address whether users should be able to create AI-generated porn and other explicit content. These talks have been ongoing since 2024, but appear to have reached a conclusion.
The types of AI porn sites that can generate this type of content have been increasingly popular, and there are more being released all the time. They allow users to create not safe for work (NSFW) content, using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to turn text from users into images.
You might have heard about these generators in news articles, as there has been a lot of controversy around deepfakes being shared and the lack of consent and policies that protect minors. There was a period where X was forced to ban searches for Taylor Swift as there were explicit deepfake images of her flooding the site.
OpenAI has stressed that they’re not considering allowing deepfakes, but some people say that allowing any form of pornography goes against the mission statement to produce “safe and beneficial” artificial intelligence.
A recent document of the model-spec of OpenAI, in February of 2025, states that prohibited content only applies to sexual content involving minors and transformations of user-provided content. It seems that they’ve reached an agreement and are relaxing some of the previous restrictions on their model.
The conversation at OpenAI relates to whether generating exotic text and nude images should be banned or allowed in its products. As of 2025, if you attempt to get ChatGPT to engage with erotica, users receive a message saying that the AI is “unable to create explicit adult content”, or something similar depending on your exact prompt. This is even after the update to the model specs. I was expecting something dirtier, but there are still some safeguards in place.
At present, OpenAI has a video generation tool called Sora as well as Dall-E 3 for images. A member of the OpenAI product team, Joanna Jang, said that “there are creative cases where sexuality or nudity are allowed, which is important to their users”. It’s hard to argue with that, as sometimes it’s artistic expression and placing a blanket ban over all forms of nudity seems unnecessary. It’s not like the rest of the internet is a safe haven without any porn on it anyway.
People are Already Using Open-sourced AI to Create Pornographic Content
There are other open-source AI models which people have changed and edited to allow for explicit content, in both images and text. These include OpenAI and DeepSeek, a newer AI model launched in China. This has led to different sites that allow people to remove clothes from photos, create deepfakes and receive nudes from prompts.
If people wish to create NSFW content, it’s highly accessible, which leads to questions about the legality and whether OpenAI should allow for pornographic content in the future, when people have already subverted its training to achieve the same results.
The mission of OpenAI is “to develop and deploy AI in a way that is safe, beneficial, and accessible to all”. You can’t really argue that helping people with their blue balls counts as beneficial. However, it also doesn’t allow for erotica in a text form. If you ask for a piece of literature or a story of two people having sex, the request will be denied.
What are Some Issues if OpenAI Allows Adult Content?
We’re already seeing the impact that using artificial intelligence for writing and art has on people’s jobs. The models they use were trained on massive amounts of public web data, and they continue to take content for training without asking permission. They now allow creators to opt out of training, but that only includes certain forms of training.
Think about all the adult content creators for a second. There’s no saying whether the model will be trained on all their data and photos, increasing the competition and making it harder for them to earn a living in an already saturated market.
It’s difficult to regulate a fast moving industry such as AI and there’s a definite risk factor if OpenAI begins to allow AI-generated porn on its server and products. At the same time, if they don’t do it, someone else will. There are other AI tools that are apparently safe, but they have no issues in generating erotica or nudes.
Another issue is that the “universal policies” of OpenAI must have strict compliance with laws that involve the exploitation or harm of children. Already dozens of schools have been affected by people sharing deepfakes of their students. At present, OpenAI allows for exceptions for scientific or medical context such as what happens during sex or an explanation of genitals, but draws the line at erotic content.