“We’re exploring whether we can responsibly provide the ability to generate NSFW content…”
Model Behavior
OpenAI’s public-facing products — like its smash hit text generator ChatGPT and its formidable image generator DALL-E — are notorious prudes: ask them for anything NSFW, and they demure.
But it sounds like that might not always be the case. As spotted by Wired, the company’s newly-released “model spec” — basically draft documentation about how the company’s AI should behave — notes that OpenAI’s creations aren’t currently allowed to cook up smut, but leaves the door open for that to change in a “commentary” note.
“We’re exploring whether we can responsibly provide the ability to generate NSFW content in age-appropriate contexts through the API and ChatGPT,” it reads. “We look forward to better understanding user and societal expectations of model behavior in this area.”
Smut Shaming
Despite OpenAI’s best efforts, sex has been a key area of experimentation in AI so far. We’ve seen people having naughty chats and even romantic relationships with AIs — including those developed by OpenAI, despite its best efforts — as well as sites that generate prurient imagery and so-far-mostly-horrifying efforts in the domain of video as well.
In practice, the results are often ethically messy. Police have investigated multiple incidents in which nude images of students were circulated around middle and high schools, and celebrities have been targeted with sexualized AI-generated deepfakes. And all the usual critiques of AI apply as much as ever: if you generate NSFW content using an AI system, doesn’t it feel invasive of all the people who didn’t consent to be included in the model’s training data?
The OpenAI insiders tasked with figuring out how its various AI systems should behave are no doubt keenly aware of all that context and critique, hence the very careful phrasing of the commentary note. Making the whole topic feel much more imminent is OpenAI’s currently-unreleased video generator Sora, which can cook up convincing synthetic footage (asked whether the software would be allowed to generate nude video a few months ago, OpenAI’s chief technology officer said she was “not sure.”)
One thing’s for sure: regardless of whether OpenAI gets on board, porn is likely to be a driving force behind the AI industry.
More on AI porn: Are We Ready For This Site’s Endless Feed of AI-Generated Porn?
