Indian-origin Republican politician Vivek Ramaswamy on Tuesday slammed OpenAI over its addition of a new feature to ChatGPT, allowing the access of erotica content for verified adults.
Ramaswamy’s reaction comes after OpenAI founder Sam Altman announced the move that ChatGPT will begin rolling out age-verified access from December and relax restrictions for users in mental distress.
Calling the new feature “troubling”, the right-winged politician said that it will do nothing to improve productivity.
“The unnecessary ‘over-humanization’ of AI is becoming troubling. This new “feature” will do nothing to improve productivity or prosperity. But it will almost certainly increase addiction & loneliness,” he said.
Ramaswamy commented that such a move requires “extreme caution”, while ruling out government intervention.
“I don’t think government intervention will make it any better, but designing AI with the specific capability to sexually or emotionally manipulate humans warrants extreme caution,” the leader said.
What is OpenAI’s new feature for adults?
In a post on Tuesday, Sam Altman said that so far, ChatGPT has been restrictive with its users.
“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,” he said.
Starting December, ChatGPT will start “treating adults like adults”.
“In December, as we roll 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,” Altman said.
How did netizens react?
The rollout of the new ChatGPT feature for adults triggered a row of reactions on the internet. Some users flagged concerns of erotic content being made available on AI, while others rallied behind the move.
“The closer machines mimic emotion, the more we risk forgetting our own. Progress should serve the soul, not replace it,” a user said.
“Some adults will want AI erotica, and that’s a decision for them to make. but id venture to guess this is a corrosive thing to engage in and would advise against it if you value human relationships [sic],” another added.
“Adults should be treated as adults and be able to use Ai however they like. So far OpenAi has been coddling us like children, rejecting a ton of prompts that aren’t even malicious in nature. This is the reason that Open Source must win, actually. We cannot let a few companies control all of the Ai world,” a netizen countered.
