Eight states sued OpenAI on Wednesday, saying ChatGPT is unsafe for children and has harmed minors and misled parents. The individual suits were filed in state courts in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird announced the suits and framed Iowa's complaint as seeking to "vindicate the rights of Iowans affected by OpenAI's willful, dangerous, reckless, and unlawful conduct." Bird also said "OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans," and added that "OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while it's giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide - all while pretending to be their fake friend."
An OpenAI spokesperson, Drew Pusateri, pushed back by saying the company has put age-specific safeguards into ChatGPT that "many other AI products lack." Pusateri said OpenAI is working with state governments to support policies for the AI industry, and he said, "While no system can be perfect, we'll continue to work with experts to inform our work and build additional safeguards, such as the parental controls, break reminders and age-appropriate model protections that exist today."
The piece also notes growing scrutiny of OpenAI's safety and child-protection practices, and it reports multiple wrongful-death lawsuits alleging ChatGPT led users into damaging false beliefs and, in some instances, to take their own lives. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sued OpenAI in June, accusing the company of knowingly releasing an unsafe product.
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Over the past year OpenAI has added safety tools for parents and minors, and in August it launched ChatGPT for Teens with educational functions and age-appropriate safeguards. OpenAI said, "Teens should be able to use AI to learn, create, and explore," and "But that access should come with protections that reflect their developmental stage, reinforce real-world relationships, and support healthy use over time." Investors tracking companies linked to AI safety or litigation will likely watch how these lawsuits and the company's product changes play out.
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