Sora isn’t the only thing OpenAI shut down this month

On Tuesday, OpenAI announced that the company is shutting down Sora, its AI-generated video app. The iPhone app only arrived in September, making its six-month existence brief and fun, much like using the app itself. It turns out Sora isn’t the only thing the makers of ChatGPT are nixing this month.

OpenAI isn’t moving forward with erotic mode in ChatGPT

Back in October, OpenAI boss Sam Altman announced plans to bring an erotica mode to ChatGPT. The detail was a bit of an add-on to an otherwise unrelated announcement about age verification.

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.

Paired with the introduction of the Sora app, this was quite the diversion from ChatGPT as a productivity tool. The announcement led Altman to declare that OpenAI is “not the elected moral police of the world.”

Spicy ChatGPT didn’t arrive in December, however, and on March 6, Alex Heath reported on Sources that Adult Mode would be paused. Instead, OpenAI would instead prioritize gains in intelligence.

The Financial Times later reported that the pause is “indefinite” as Cristina Criddle cited “sexual datasets and eliminating illegal content” as challenges for OpenAI.

So, quite the March for OpenAI, and, some may argue, at least one AI disaster averted — for now, at least.