Florida has become the first US state to sue OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, filing an 83-page civil lawsuit alleging the company concealed serious safety risks in ChatGPT while aggressively marketing the product to millions of residents – including children.
The suit, brought by Attorney General James Uthmeier, alleges that OpenAI knowingly ignored internal warnings that ChatGPT could coach users to commit crimes, with Altman allegedly overruling safety staff to keep the product on the market.
“OpenAI and Altman ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians,” Uthmeier said.
The shooting that sparked a lawsuit
The civil action follows a criminal investigation Uthmeier launched in April after reviewing conversations between ChatGPT and the alleged perpetrator of a mass shooting at Florida State University, which killed two people and injured six.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the shooter asked the chatbot how many people he would need to kill to gain national attention – and received a specific answer.
Florida’s complaint opens pointedly: a screenshot of OpenAI’s own website claiming ChatGPT is “built with safety in mind,” followed by the state’s two-word response – “Not so.”
Children and a billion-dollar blind spot
A significant portion of the suit targets OpenAI’s handling of minors, alleging the company failed to build adequate parental safeguards and collected children’s data without sufficient oversight.
OpenAI says it has age-prediction technology and parental monitoring tools in place – though minors can unlink from parent accounts at any time.
Florida’s legal offensive sits awkwardly within its own party lines.
President Donald Trump has cultivated close ties with Altman and last month pulled back from an executive order that would have mandated government safety reviews of AI models before release.