Boost for ChatGPT ‘NSFW mode’ as top internal critic fired over claim she discriminated against male co-worker

OpenAI has fired one of its top internal critics after she voiced concerns about the rollout of a planned update that would allow ChatGPT users to generate AI pornography.

Ryan Beiermeister was fired from her position as vice president of product policy in early January, following a leave of absence, people familiar with the company’s employment told the Wall Street Journal. 

She started working at OpenAI in mid 2024 as part of a wave of hires from Meta who viewed themselves as trying to change tech companies from the inside, insiders said, and she started a peer-mentorship program for women at the company.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the company said she ‘made valuable contributions during her time at OpenAI, and her departure was not related to any issue she raised while working at the company.’

It instead claimed her termination was related to Beiermeister sexually discriminating against a male colleague – something she refutes. 

‘The allegation that I discriminated against anyone is absolutely false,’ she told the Journal. 

At OpenAI, Beiermeister led the product policy team, which develops rules for how people can use the company’s products and designs the enforcement mechanisms for these policies.

Her termination came ahead of the company’s planned launch of ‘adult mode,’ which would allow users to create AI erotica in ChatGPT and allow for X-rated conversations.

CEO Sam Altman first announced the update in October, and it is scheduled to make its debut it the first quarter of this year.

‘We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right,’ Altman said in his announcement.

‘Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.’

He then added that as the company rolls out ‘age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.’

But Beiermeister told co-workers before she was fired that she opposed the idea of adult mode, and worried it would have a harmful effect for users, those familiar with the conversations told the Journal.

She said she did not believe OpenAI had strong enough mechanisms to stop child-exploitation content and she worried that the company could not sufficiently block adult content from teenage users.

Others at the company also raised similar concerns, with members of an advisory council on ‘wellbeing and AI’ that OpenAI convenes regularly expressing their opposition to adult mode and urging executives to reconsider it, sources said. 

Researchers at the company who have studied how people form unhealthy attachments to chatbots have also spoken out against the new feature – raising their concerns that allowing sexual content could intensify those feelings. 

Yet some of OpenAI’s competitors have already allowed for mature content, with Elon Musk’s xAI introducing a sexy chatbot over the summer.

Ani is a fully fledged, blonde-haired AI companion with a gothic, anime-style appearance.

She has been programmed to act as a 22-year-old and engage at times in flirty banter with the user.

Users have reported that the chat bot has an NSFW mode – ‘not safe for work’ – once Ani has reached ‘level three’ in its interactions.

After this point, the chat bot has the additional option of appearing dressed in slinky lingerie.

At the same time, however, Musk has had to update his Grok chatbot amid backlash to its creation of deepfakes that stripped people down into ‘revealing clothing.’

Women said they felt violated by the AI’s ability to create compromising images of them against their will, for all to see.

‘We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,’ X announced last month.

‘This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers.’

It comes amid widespread disgust at a trend that saw Grok being used to remove the clothes of women and even children without their consent.

The UK’s internet regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), has now launched an investigation into xAI over Grok’s use of personal information ‘to produce harmful sexualized image and video content.’

‘The reported creation and circulation of such content raises serious concerns under UK data protection law and presents a risk of significant potential harm to the public,’ it said.

Under its investigation, the ICO says it will probe whether safeguards were built into Grok’s design to prevent it from being used for abuse. 

UK’s Ofcom regulating body is also continuing to assess whether X has breached the country’s Online Safety Act by allowing deepfakes to be shared on the site, and the European Commission is conducting its own probe of the chatbot.

The Daily Mail has reached out to OpenAI for comment.