OpenAI has reportedly fired safety executive Ryan Beirmeister, whose title at the company VP of product policy. According to the Wall Street Journal, that broke the storyBeirmeister was told that her firing was related to sex discrimination against a male colleague.

“The allegation that I discriminated against anyone is completely false,” Beiermeister told the journal in a statement.

According to anonymous sources who spoke to the Journal, The firing, which apparently took place in early January, came after Beirmeister expressed his opposition to the ChatGPT adult mode (or erotica mode?) announced by Sam Altman in October last year. Beirmeister is also, according to the Journal, the creator of an internal “peer-mentorship” group for women at OpenAI.

A possible adult mode has been in the works for some time. A model spec in 2024 Indicates the possibility of NSFW content. However, OpenAI told Mashable about the release of that document“We have no intention of creating AI-generated pornography.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stepped back a little with its mature mode announcement from last year, which emphasized mature conversations, rather than horniness, but the ability for users to have a form of cybersex with OpenAI’s signature chatbot seems to be on the way. Altman just wants to provide, he says, “more freedom for people to use AI in the ways they want,” and he says he and his company are “not the elected moral police of the world.”

Sources who spoke to the journal also mentioned an “advisory council” of “well-being and AI” within OpenAI, and this entity apparently asked for the release of adult mode to be reconsidered.

But OpenAI’s statement in the Journal of Beirmeister’s firing strongly implies that it has nothing to do with adult mode. It said he “made valuable contributions during his time at OpenAI, and his departure is unrelated to any issue he raised while working at the company.”