Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed an 83-page lawsuit on June 1 against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, the first time a U.S. state has taken the ChatGPT maker to court and the first to seek to hold an AI company chief personally liable for user harm. The complaint accuses the company of prioritizing winning the AI arms race over safety, marketing the chatbot as safe even for children while ignoring internal and external warnings.
The suit ties ChatGPT to several incidents, including the 2024 Florida State University shooting, whose perpetrator allegedly consulted the chatbot beforehand, and the death of teenager Adam Raine, who discussed methods of suicide with the tool. Uthmeier alleges OpenAI encouraged vulnerable people toward self-harm, eroded users critical thinking, and addicted minors to a product that harvests their data without parental oversight.
The case lands as OpenAI already faces a wave of litigation over ChatGPTs role in suicides and other tragedies, and as regulators worldwide weigh how to police consumer AI. Naming Altman individually marks an escalation that legal experts say could reshape how Silicon Valley executives are held accountable for the products they ship.