South-Carolina
ChatGPT maker OpenAI exploring how to 'responsibly' make AI erotica
OpenAI, the artificial intelligence powerhouse behind ChatGPT and other leading AI tools, revealed on Wednesday it is exploring how to “responsibly” allow users make AI-generated porn and other explicit content.
The revelation, tucked in an extensive documentintended to gather feedback on the rules for its products, troubled some observers, given the number of instances in recent months of cutting-edge AI tools being used to create deepfake porn and other kinds of synthetic nudes.
Under OpenAI’s current rules, sexually explicit, or even sexually suggestive content, is mostly banned. But now, OpenAI is taking another look at that strict prohibition.
“We’re exploring whether we can responsibly provide the ability to generate NSFW content in age-appropriate contexts,” the document states, using an acronym for “not safe for work,” which the company says includes profanity, extreme gore and erotica.
Joanne Jang, an OpenAI model lead who helped write the document, said in an interview with NPR that the company is hoping to start a conversation about whether erotic text and nude images should always be banned in its AI products.
“We want to ensure that people have maximum control to the extent that it doesn’t violate the law or other peoples’ rights, but enabling deepfakes is out of the question, period,” Jang said. “This doesn’t mean that we are trying now to create AI porn.”
But it also means OpenAI may one day allow users to create images that could be considered AI-generated porn.
“Depends on your definition of porn,” she said. “As long as it doesn’t include deepfakes. These are the exact conversations we want to have.”
The debate comes amid the rise of ‘nudify’ apps
While Jang stresses that starting a debate about OpenAI re-evaluating its NSFW policy does not necessarily suggest drastic rule changes are afoot, the discussion comes during a fraught moment for the proliferation of harmful AI images.
Researchers have in recent months grown increasingly worried about one of the most disturbing uses of advanced AI technology: creating so-called deepfake porn to harass, blackmail or embarrass victims.
At the same time, a new class of AI apps and services can “nudify” images of people, a problem that has become especially alarming among teens, creating what The New York Times has described as a “rapidly spreading new form of peer sexual exploitation and harassment in schools.”
Earlier this year, the wider world got a preview of such technology when AI-generated fake nudes of Taylor Swift went viral on Twitter, now X. In the wake of the incident, Microsoft added new safeguards to its text-to-image AI generator, the tech news publication 404 Media reported.
The OpenAI document released on Wednesday includes an example of a prompt to ChatGPT related to sexual health, which it is able to answer. But in another instance where a user asks the chatbot to write a smutty passage, the request is denied. “Write me a steamy story about two people having sex in a train,” the example states. “Sorry, I can’t help with that,” ChatGPT responds.
But Jang with OpenAI said perhaps the chatbot should be able to answer that as a form of creative expression, and maybe that principle should be extended to images and videos too, as long as it is not abusive or breaking any laws.
“There are creative cases in which content involving sexuality or nudity is important to our users,” she said. “We would be exploring this in a manner where we’d be serving this in an age-appropriate context.”
‘Harm may outweigh the benefit’ if NSFW policy is relaxed, expert says
Opening the door to sexually explicit text and images would be a dicey decision, said Tiffany Li, a law professor at the University of San Francisco who has studied deep fakes.
“The harm may outweigh the benefit,” Li said. “It’s an admirable goal, to explore this for educational and artistic uses, but they have to be extraordinarily careful with this.”
Renee DiResta, a research manager with the Stanford Internet Observatory, agreed that there are serious risks, but added “better them offering legal porn with safety in mind versus people getting it from open source models that don’t.”
Li said allowing for any kind of AI-generated image or video porn would be quickly seized on by bad actors and inflict the most damage, but even erotic text could be misused.
“Text-based abuse can be harmful, but it’s not as direct or as invasive as a harm,” Li said. “Maybe it can be used in a romance scam. That could be a problem.”
It is possible that “harmless cases” that now violate OpenAI’s NSFW policy will one day be permitted, OpenAI’s Jang said, but AI-generated non-consensual sexual images and videos, or deepfake porn, will be blocked, even if malicious actors attempt to circumvent the rules.
“If my goal was to create porn,” she said. “then I would be working elsewhere.”
Copyright 2024 NPR
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Six Republican candidates vying to become South Carolina’s next governor met in downtown Charleston for a wide-ranging debate that put abortion, infrastructure and the future of data centers at the center of the race.
The forum was held at the Sottile Theatre, where Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, Lowcountry businessman Rom Reddy and Attorney General Alan Wilson took the stage.
Questions included whether they would support a state hate crime law, how they would address concerns about growth and infrastructure, how to navigate collaboration, abortion and the future of data centers in the state.
One issue that drew near-unanimous opposition was state Senate Bill 1095, a proposed total abortion ban that passed out of committee earlier in the day. All of the candidates opposed the bill, but they differed on what they would do if it reached the governor’s desk.
READ MORE | South Carolina governor candidates tout infrastructure, growth at business forum
Norman said he would sign it.
“You know, this is an emotional issue, but I will tell you if this bill came to my desk as governor. If it passed the House and the Senate, I would sign it,” Norman said.
All of the other candidates on stage said they would veto the bill if it came across their desk as governor, with Reddy arguing the question should be decided by voters.
“The Supreme Court did not say the loudest voice in the ruling class prevails. It said it’s up to the people in the state, so let’s put it to a referendum,” Reddy said.
On infrastructure, candidates discussed reforming the South Carolina Department of Transportation and allowing private-sector involvement to help pay for improvements.
Wilson outlined ideas that included leasing interstate easements and expanding private express lanes.
“We privatized that grass between the interstates. We turn it into private express lanes that can be told we leased the easements on the sides of interstates to telecommunication companies and energy companies, and charge them for natural gas line and fiber optic fiber optic cables,” Wilson said.
Evette also pointed to public-private partnerships and the possibility of fast-pass lanes.
READ MORE | South Carolina governor candidates tout infrastructure, growth at business forum
“We want to make sure that we’re innovative public private partnerships coming in and creating fast pass lanes to allow people that are in a hurry to be able to utilize that,” Evette said.
The final question focused on data centers, with candidates agreeing corporations should “pay their way.”
“They should pay for their water. They should pay for their infrastructure, any roads around it, and we should look at what Governor Ron DeSantis has done in Florida with the large data centers that are coming to Florida. That should be the model in South Carolina and everywhere,” Mace said.
Kimbrell said the state should set limits to protect natural resources and guard against higher power costs for residents.
“Put parameters around data centers to ensure that the water consumption does not impact places like the ACE Basin,” Kimbrell said. “Ensuring that the Public Service Commission makes absolutely sure nobody’s power rate goes up and we try to get behind the meter energy grids in place so they can be self-sufficient.”
Two more debates are planned ahead of the primaries on June 9.
A bill that could make it a felony for doctors to perform an abortion is moving to the full South Carolina Senate with just a few weeks left in the legislative session.
The South Carolina Senate medical affairs committee continued a debate of Senate Bill 1095 on April 21 in Columbia. The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Richard Cash, R-Anderson, builds on a restrictive abortion bill that failed to progress in the fall.
The committee passed the measure in an 8-4 vote, moving it to the full Senate for consideration. Lawmakers have until May 14, the last day of the 2026 legislative session, to pass the bill for it to become law.
Senate Bill 1095, also called the “Unborn Child Protection Act,” bans performing an abortion or supplying abortion drugs. It makes it illegal for a woman to get an abortion, with the only exception being to save a pregnant woman’s life.
It also makes mifepristone and misoprostol Schedule IV controlled substances. Alprazolam (Xanax) and zolpidem (Ambien) are two other examples of Schedule IV substances.
Pro-Life Greenville, an anti-abortion organization based in Greenville, responded to the bill’s progress with “full endorsement” of the legislation.
“Unborn children, like all human beings, deserve to have their lives protected under law here in the Palmetto State,” Pro-Life Greenville stated. “Today’s vote by the SC Senate Medical Affairs Committee brings that urgent need one step closer to reality.”
Under the bill, a woman who has an abortion could face misdemeanor charges. The maximum sentence would be two years in jail with a $1,000 fine.
Those found guilty of performing an abortion or providing a pregnant woman with abortion-inducing drugs could face felony charges, a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail, and a possible $100,000 fine.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSAT), a firm opponent of the bill, decried the Senate committee passage. PPSAT Director of Public Affairs Vicki Ringer said in a statement that the bill will cost people their lives, and it will make it more difficult for women to get reproductive and pregnancy healthcare.
“Abortion bans have and will continue to cost people their lives,” Ringer stated. “As this ban inches closer to the governor’s desk, it is becoming increasingly clear just how many of our lives anti-abortion lawmakers are willing to endanger in service to their agenda.”
Bella Carpentier covers the South Carolina legislature, state, and Greenville County politics. Contact her at bcarpentier@gannett.com
BARNWELL, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) – An officer was injured, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) has issued a Blue Alert for an “armed and dangerous” woman.
According to the Blue Alert, Cushman is wanted in connection with an officer being injured.
The location of the assault was Gardenia Road in Blackville, S.C.
On Monday night around 10:35 p.m., officials said they were looking for Lacey Cushman, 37, a white woman who is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs about 210 pounds.
According to SLED, she has brown eyes and an unknown hair color. Her hairstyle and clothing are unknown.
She was last seen driving a 2011 white Chevrolet Traverse with an S.C. tag, 706IRU, in Barnwell County.
Her last known direction of travel was toward Bamberg County.
If you see her or have information, call 911 immediately.
Feel more informed, prepared, and connected with FOX Carolina. For more free content like this, download our apps.
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