OpenAI is refining how its AI models handle complex and controversial topics with a major update to its Model Spec. The expanded 63-page document, significantly longer than its previous version, lays out new behavioral guidelines, emphasizing customizability, transparency, and what OpenAI calls “intellectual freedom.” These changes come ahead of the anticipated launch of GPT-4.5, codenamed Orion.
The updated Model Spec introduces a more nuanced approach to handling sensitive queries, moving away from extreme caution and instead focusing on engaging users in open discussions while maintaining clear moral stances. OpenAI has also incorporated lessons from recent AI ethics debates, including challenges around AI sycophancy—where models tend to agree with users rather than provide critical analysis. The new guidelines aim to ensure that AI-generated responses remain factually consistent, regardless of how questions are phrased.
Another key shift involves content moderation. The spec suggests a move towards allowing more adult-themed content in controlled settings, following user requests for a “grown-up mode.” While OpenAI maintains strict bans on harmful material such as deepfakes and revenge porn, it is exploring ways to permit certain types of mature content with appropriate safeguards.
Customization remains a priority, with a structured “chain of command” defining how different levels of instructions interact. OpenAI’s rules take precedence, followed by developer guidelines, then user preferences. This hierarchy clarifies which aspects of model behavior can be adjusted and which remain fixed.
The spec is being released under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, making it freely available for modification and use by other AI companies and researchers. OpenAI hopes this transparency will encourage industry-wide discussion and refinement of AI behavior standards.
These updates arrive amid ongoing debates over AI safety, bias, and ethical decision-making. OpenAI is soliciting public feedback on the new guidelines, acknowledging that some aspects will likely provoke strong reactions. As AI capabilities continue to expand, defining how these models should behave remains a pressing challenge—one that OpenAI is now making part of a broader, more open conversation.