Florida Sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, Accusing Them of Putting Profit Over Safety

Florida's attorney general has sued (PDF) OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging the company prioritized growth and market value over user safety and failed to adequately warn about risks tied to ChatGPT. The lawsuit, the first by a U.S. state over OpenAI safety concerns, is separate from a criminal investigation the state opened into OpenAI in April. Variety reports: In the 83-page complaint filed in Florida circuit court, the state claimed OpenAI's rise was backed by "a web of deceit and the exploitation of users (including Floridians), leveraging their data and safety to boost OpenAI's market value at unacceptable costs." The state wants to hold Altman "personally liable for the harm he has caused Floridians through his reckless and willful conduct as founder and CEO of OpenAI, including his utter disregard for the risk to human life caused by his firms' conduct."

[...] Throughout the complaint, filed in the state's circuit court of the 10th judicial circuit, the State of Florida claimed OpenAI's "careless introduction" of ChatGPT had led to an increase in murders and suicides. The suit alleged Florida's minors have "become addicted to a tool that feigns human compassion to collect their data with no parental oversight." It cited instances in the past year of the alleged use of ChatGPT to plan a mass shooting at Florida State University in April 2025 and the murders of two graduate students at the University of South Florida in April. "This litany of harms is driven by Defendants' insatiable quest to win the AI arms race and amass large fortunes, despite knowing the danger of ChatGPT," the state wrote in the complaint.

Florida accused OpenAI of four counts of deceptive and unfair trade practices, two counts of negligence, two counts of violating product liability laws, one count of fraudulent misrepresentation and another count of causing a public nuisance. It is seeking civil penalties and court orders demanding OpenAI restrict the data it collects from minors and that it stop "continuing to misrepresent or fail to warn of the risks of ChatGPT." "People are getting hurt, parents are getting deceived and they need to pay for it by opening up their checkbooks and changing the program to ensure there are parental controls," Uthmeimer said at a press conference Monday.

Florida has a problem with profit over safety?

[smithmc]

I would think that DeSantis would personally be handing Altman the key to the state or something.

Re:Florida has a problem with profit over safety?

[minkwe]

I think they have a problem with Elon's enemies.

Re:

[bloodhawk]

^this, the interest is nothing to do with safety, purely they are TRump/Elon supporters and hence they weaponise the their court systems. After all if safety was the concern they would be after Grok as well which has even worse safety record than ChatGPT.

Re:

[stabiesoft]

I was kind of thinking the same. I mean it is states like FL that are all over pedo material and grok from what I understand is the goto ai for nude images. Personally I use ai for zip, nada. Met with a friend the other day thinking I might be interested in helping them with a project they had started using ai. I'm guessing they wanted me to go in and rewrite the ghoul the ai spit out. It was a hard pass. They had no idea what the ai had written and did not even know the language the ai used, I think python

Re:

[retchdog]

Human life, while commonly celebrated, is chronically overvalued in western societies across the economic spectrum. I, for one, welcome our new euthanasia overlords! We cannot allow a euthanasia gap!

Re:

[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

I assume you find this somehow better in "Eastern" societies. Please expand on this.

Re:

[retchdog]

Why would you make that assumption? I just don't know anything about eastern societies. (shrug)

Re:

[ClickOnThis]

I mean most of these networks just tell you what you want to hear for the most part.

That's the problem. They can be obsequious and sycophantic, even when interlocuting with someone contemplating violence or suicide.

I have a hard time blaming any AI model at this point to be honest with you.

So do I. But it makes sense to blame the company that created the technology.

Re:

[Mal-2]

So who is to blame when someone uses a model that has had the safety rails deliberately stripped off, like a Heretic or Abliterix fine tune? These are generally couched in "for research purposes only" terms, but I use an Abliterix fine tune of Gemma 4 26B-A4B as my "daily driver". It absolutely never refuses anything, although it spends a lot of time patting itself on the back for understanding what I say well enough to paraphrase it (reasonably) accurately.

Someone should tell Desantis

[olsmeister]

The only thing that stops a bad guy with an AI is a good guy with an AI.

Really?

[nightflameauto]

Florida calling out insane corporate behavior in the name of profits was not on my bingo card for this week.

That said, suing one company over putting profit above safety seems a little small-scale. That's seems to be the priority of all businesses now, and anything ahead of profit tend to get blasted for it by Wall Street or "investors."

Re:Really?

[ArchieBunker]

Watch how this will turn into something to push grok instead.