By David Nield

We've got to keep waiting for ChatGPT adult mode (Image credit: Getty Images/ SOPA Images )

• OpenAI has announced that ChatGPT adult mode is delayed again
• The update was originally planned to land in December
• OpenAI says there are higher priority upgrades to work on for now

It was last October when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promised that ChatGPT would get an adult mode — for generating erotica and other kinds of similar content — but the original December launch window has passed, and now we're hearing that grown-up topics of conversation will be delayed even further.

An OpenAI spokesperson has told Axios (via TechCrunch) that the company is "pushing out" the adult mode launch to some unspecified time in the future. Right now, the spokesperson said, OpenAI engineers are working on "higher priority" updates.

Those priorities include intelligence upgrades, personality tweaks, and a "more proactive" attitude from ChatGPT. "We still believe in the principle of treating adults like adults, but getting the experience right will take more time," the spokesperson said.

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We don't actually know too much about the adult mode in ChatGPT, but OpenAI says that it will only be available for accounts with users who have been verified as being over 18 — although there have been some early issues with the age detection feature.

Ethics in AI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has had a lot of questions to answer in recent days (Image credit: Getty Images / VCG / OpenAI)

The news comes as OpenAI is in the midst of a storm of controversy over AI ethics. The company's decision to sign a deal with the US military has attracted fierce criticism over concerns around mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, and the numbers suggest a substantial number of ChatGPT users are quitting the app.

It's not just users either: OpenAI's head of robotics Caitlin Kalinowski has resigned from the company over the agreement with the Pentagon, and it's far from the first time that OpenAI employees have expressed worries over the company's safety policies.

With all of that in mind, it's perhaps unsurprising that OpenAI would want to steer clear of further debates about what AI should and shouldn't be used for. For now, there's no new potential launch date for the ChatGPT adult mode.

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The most recent ChatGPT upgrade we've seen is a new GPT-5.4 Thinking model, which rolled out just a few days ago and is built for more complex tasks. In the meantime, adult AI bots are widely available, if you know where to look.

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David Nield

Freelance Contributor

Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.