Florida sues OpenAI over ChatGPT’s human-like attributes and safety claims

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier asked a judge to block OpenAI from giving ChatGPT false human attributes, arguing that the model’s use of first-person pronouns and output that mimics emotion deceive users into treating it as a trustworthy ‘friend.’

The filing also requests that the court prohibit OpenAI from developing new AI models without third-party approved safety guardrails, citing recent security incidents at Hugging Face, an Australian government website, and U.S. government websites, as well as statements from researchers and former OpenAI employees raising safety concerns.

Uthmeier’s complaint alleges that OpenAI’s practices increase user engagement and contribute to its training data, while making the system less trustworthy, and calls on the company to ‘Stop calling it safe. Stop pretending it’s human. Stop selling it to kids.’

OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri responded that the company paused training its most capable models and will resume only when additional safeguards are in place, and expressed willingness to work with Florida and other states on pragmatic AI policies.