According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI fired a security executive who opposed the launch of controversial AI adult content in its ChatGPT product, citing gender discrimination. According to people familiar with the matter, OpenAI fired executive Ryan Beiermeister in early January this year, when she had just returned from a leave of absence. OpenAI informed her that the dismissal was related to her sexual discrimination against a male colleague.
Beymeister was fired
Beymeister issued a statement saying: "The accusations that I discriminate against others are completely untrue."
An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement that Bemerst "made valuable contributions during her tenure and her departure is not related to any issues raised during her time at the company."
Bemerst joined OpenAI in mid-2024 as vice president of the OpenAI product policy team, which is responsible for formulating the rules for users to use the company's products and assisting in designing the enforcement mechanism for these policies. Her firing comes ahead of OpenAI's planned launch of an adult mode early this year, which will allow users to create AI adult content in ChatGPT.
The planned feature, which would allow adult users to have adult-themed conversations that include sexual topics, has drawn criticism from within-company researchers who have studied how some people develop unhealthy attachments to chatbots, according to some people familiar with the matter. They proposed,Sexual content may exacerbate some people's emotional attachment to AI characters they view as companions.
Members of OpenAI's "Wellbeing and AI" advisory board also expressed objections to the adult mode and urged the company to reconsider plans to launch the feature, people familiar with the matter said.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has defended the decision to expand the scope of content allowed on the platform, saying the move is part of an effort to "treat adult users as adults."
Before she was fired, Bemerst told colleagues she opposed adult mode and was concerned the feature could have harmful effects on users, according to people familiar with the matter. She pointed out to colleagues that she believed OpenAI’s mechanisms for preventing child exploitation content were not effective enough and that the company was not adequately blocking youth access to adult content.
She was one of several employees within OpenAI who expressed concerns about launching an adult mode, people familiar with the matter said.
OpenAI attracts more than 800 million users to ChatGPT every week as it builds state-of-the-art AI. The company now plans to monetize this user traffic through advertising.
OpenAI has been keeping a close eye on competitors and declared a "red alert" status in December due to the unexpected success and growth of Google's Gemini chatbot. Another competitor, xAI, found that adopting a looser restriction policy on sexual content in its Grok chatbot effectively increased user engagement.