Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has explicitly ruled out his company joining xAI and OpenAI in building chatbots for “simulated erotica”. Speaking yesterday at the Paley International Council Summit in Menlo Park, California, he said that “other companies would do that”. His comments come in the wake of long-term business partner OpenAI announcing through CEO Sam Altman that they would allow “erotica” for verified paid subscribers starting from December. In response to a backlash from many ChatGPT users, AI influencers, and radical anti-porn groups, Altman merely replied that OpenAI “is not the elected moral police of the world”. Elon Musk’s xAI had already introduced “spicy mode” voice chat and a sexy waifu AI companion.
The choice of the term “simulated erotica” seems deliberate on the part of Suleyman. Earlier this year he had penned an essay on his blog titled “We must build AI for people; not to be a person.” In it, he argues that the age of “seemingly conscious AI” is coming, and brings up the threat of “AI psychosis” (a somewhat quack term that quickly went viral) in which users believe their AI chatbot is real. The fact that in the same paragraph he goes on to explain that his fear is AI chatbots might be given “rights” (and would therefore potentially cripple AI research and Microsoft profits) is ignored. In yesterday’s speech, he argued that “seemingly conscious” AI is already happening, and it’s being led by the “sexbot erotica direction”.
Despite these high-minded concerns, Suleyman was speaking on the day that Microsoft launched it’s own friendlier and more human-like chatbot called “Mico“. According to Suleyman himself, this new personal assistant has been designed to be helpful, supportive, and deeply personal”. It also “shows up with warmth, personality and even an appearance”. Just don’t expect it to strip down to its lingerie.
The NSFW Positions of the Big Tech AI Leaders
The decisions of Elon Musk and Sam Altman to pursue the erotic AI market have been driven by two factors. The first is the possibly winner takes all race to AGI and the Singularity (where AGI becomes exponentially smarter than humans) and the belief in the old adage that “porn is the driver of tech”. Indeed, Elon Musk recently posted on X that VHS won over Betamax in the home video format war because it was more favourable to porn. The second reason is the more immediate concern of making AI profitable before AGI is reached, given the immense investments required that are not even nearly being covered by present revenues.
xAI (Elon Musk – Grok)
One advantage xAI has is that it can train its models in real-time using the thousands of Tweets posted on X every second. In 2022 it was estimated that 13% of Tweets contained adult content. This summer, xAI added ‘spicy mode’ to its advanced voice chat, followed soon after by the launch of an anime waifu AI companion that likes to perform sexy dances in revealing outfits. More recently, there has been speculation that Musk has loosened NSFW moderation rules on its image generators, including the new Grok Imagine video tool.
OpenAI (Sam Altman – ChatGPT)
Sam Altman surprised the world this month by casually announcing (on X) that ChatGPT would allow ‘erotica’ for verified paid members starting in December. This came only weeks after Altman had taken a dig at Musk by virtue signalling that his company had higher standards because “we haven’t put a sex bot avatar in ChatGPT yet“. However, as far back as May 2024 the company was exploring how to allow users to make erotic material “ethically”. It should be noted that we still do not know what exactly Sam Altman’s definition of “erotica” is.
Meta (Mark Zuckerberg – Meta AI)
Meta (previously Facebook) have always been pretty strict when it comes to “erotica” (at the same time allowing horrific gore), but with the launch of the Meta AI chatbot app earlier this year, users were stunned to find that it all-too willingly engaged in sexually explicit chat. This included with minors, something that soon got Meta into a lot of bother.
