TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier is filing a lawsuit against OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, alleging the company prioritized speed to market over safety.
ChatGPT has been in the spotlight in Florida after it was discovered that the alleged FSU shooter spoke with the chat bot thousands of times in the years leading up to the shooting, including just moments before he opened fire.
Florida politics:
The chat logs show Phoenix Ikner asked how to use weapons, what time of day the student union was the busies and how many people he’d need to kill to get on TV.
Monday, Uthemeier announced a civil lawsuit against OpenAI to “seek damages on behalf of the people of Florida.”
“There are good things that can be done, sure. But, people like Sam Altman should not be designing these products to be addictive, to go after kids and to encourage them to do dangerous things,” Uthmeier said.
The attorney general still has an ongoing criminal probe into the company.
Ikner’s trial is still scheduled for October, after a Leon County Circuit Judge declined to push the start date back, over the objections of Ikner’s defense team.
The attorney general’s lawsuit is the third civil action to be announced against ChatGPT after the FSU shooting. The first two were announced by attorneys representing the victims.
All of the civil cases are in their early stages, and the allegations have not yet been tested in court.
Statement from OpenAI
“Losing a child is the most devastating tragedy that can happen to a family and we know that no words can come close to addressing the pain of such a loss. AI is a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection, which is why we have put in place industry leading protections and policies. In particular we built safety for minors directly into our products, including a more protective experience specifically for minors, an age prediction tool, defaulting users whose age we are not confident into our more protective experience, and giving parents tools to monitor their kids’ use of AI. We know pointing to this work will not bring a child back, but we’re committed to getting this right.” – OpenAI spokesperson
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