Ryan Beiermeister, who served as OpenAI’s product policy, was fired in January after a male colleague accused her of sex discrimination, according to a Wall Street Journal report. “The allegation that I discriminated against anyone is absolutely false,” Beiermeister told the WSJ.
The report stated that Beiermeister was fired after she expressed criticism of a planned “adult mode” for ChatGPT.
CEO Sam Altman had announced this adult mode back in October 2025, saying that OpenAI will relax some of its safety restrictions allowing users to make the chatbot’s responses friendlier or more “human-like,” and for “verified adults” to engage in erotic conversations. Fidji Simo, the company’s CEO of Applications — a role overseeing the company’s consumer-facing products told reporters that the new feature is planned to launch during the first quarter of this year.
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Beiermeister and others at the company have raised concerns about how the new “adult” feature could potentially impact certain users, according to the report.
OpenAI reportedly said that Beiermeister, who was fired following a leave of absence, had “made valuable contributions during her time at OpenAI, and her departure was not related to any issue she raised while working at the company.” Her LinkedIn profile says she previously worked for four years on Meta’s product team and spent more than seven years working for Palantir.
With ChatGPT’s “adult mode,” OpenAI joins other chatbot providers like Character.ai, Grok and Replika known for including adult content. An OpenAI spokesperson had told TechCrunch that the company will rely on the age-prediction system it’s building to ensure that ChatGPT’s erotic features are only available to adult users.
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Altman had said OpenAI is also making ChatGPT friendlier and erotic because of the company’s “treat adult users like adults” principle. Over last year, the company shifted to a “more lenient” content strategy, allowing the chatbot to be more permissive and offer less refusals. In February 2025, OpenAI pledged to represent more political viewpoints in ChatGPT, and in March, the company updated ChatGPT to allow AI-generated images of hate symbols.
People have raised concerns about this “adult mode” worsening the issue of users developing parasocial relationships with chatbots, and of minors getting past filters and being opposed to inappropriate content. Similar problems have been seen in other platforms, with a report by Business Insider showing that conversations with Grok’s chatbot Ani often escalated into explicit exchanges after minimal prompting.
Company employees also encountered AI-generated sexual abuse while moderating Grok’s flirtatious avatar, which can “strip on command” and be switched between “sexy” and “unhinged” modes.