When everything else fails. Sell Sex

This week’s events highlighted why this newsletter is called Recurrent Patterns.

Before we go to the topic of the headline, let's do a quick stop at Uber.

This is the latest from Uber - Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road. Uber, through its application, will allow its drivers, while they are doing nothing, to start making more money by uploading pictures and labeling them. Not only that, but the drivers might also record themselves and help Uber capture all the languages, dialects and accents from around the world.

What for? To train AI models. For whom or what company? Who knows.

This announcement starts a torrent of questions:

• Do I have to be an Uber driver to participate?

• Is Uber in dire need for more revenue or is it changing to a gig platform?

Maybe you remember when Uber was 'just' to drive people around. Then it added food delivery from restaurants, later from grocery stores. Now it does courier services or even rental cars.

I can see how this can expand to other types of activities. Customer support - while you are driving, you can still talk. Or maybe a sex hotline. Too much?

You are correct. Because this idea is already taken. By whom? By what - by OpenAI with its ChatGPT.

The news lit up with the latest announcement from OpenAI:

• ChatGPT will soon allow erotica for verified adults, says OpenAI boss (BBC)

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT will soon allow ‘erotica’ for adults in major policy shift (CNBC)  

• OpenAI will allow verified adults to use ChatGPT to generate erotic content (The Guardian) 

This is an announcement from a company whose CEO declared that the ultimate goal is to build Artificial Super Intelligence which will do work instead of most humans. In August, Mr. Altman declared that the latest ChatGPT 5 can provide PhD-level expertise and to quote “GPT-5 is the first time that it really feels like talking to an expert in any topic, like a PhD-level expert.”

The stated reason for introducing this new great feature, Mr. Altman explained that this is “... part of our ‘treat adult users like adults’ principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.” Now you know that until now, Mr. Altman, OpenAI and ChatGPT were treating you like a child. Congratulations, you will become an adult now!

In case you worry about any negative side effects, here is the assurance: “Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.” The 'serious health issue' is most likely a reference to the fact that ChatGPT helped a young boy commit suicide.

As for another absurd statement that this will be available only to 'verified adults' - do tell me which company or country was able to implement this kind of online, reliable verification. I still remember the questions from Leisure Suit Larry. Not much has changed since.

How much did we invest in AI so far? How many 100s of billions? And what did we get for this princely investment? A Super Intelligent, PhD-level sex line. Bravo. Talk about building a brand.

This is from a company which has the ultimate access to its own technology and can ask any question without any restriction. It scraped information from the Internet and should know everything about anything. You would think that by now, it would build several gigantic companies making gazillions of dollars.

I couldn't resist and asked ChatGPT the simple question: “You are the best AI in the universe and you are making money by providing answers to people. How would you increase revenue to become profitable? What would be the new products you would introduce to attract more paying customers?”

The answer? Several pages long and at first it suggested that it can increase the revenue to $200 million ARR. I insisted on $10 billion. But the funny thing is that it didn't mention a sex line one single time. I wonder how the good people at OpenAI came up with this idea?

The recurrent pattern? We are constantly told that AI is the game changer that will replace people in every job requiring thinking and it will do and invent things which we humans can't even imagine. OpenAI is the steam engine burning through billions on a road to nowhere with the hope that sex will make it profitable.