{"id":59555,"date":"2026-06-02T18:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T18:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/59555\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T18:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T18:22:13","slug":"florida-becomes-first-state-to-sue-openai-over-child-safety-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/59555\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida becomes first state to sue OpenAI over child safety risks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Key takeaways:<\/p>\n

Florida<\/a> Attorney General James Uthmeier files lawsuit
\nLawsuit cites Tallahassee university shooting<\/a> involvement
\nOpenAI<\/a> CEO Sam Altman named personally in suit
\nOpenAI denies enabling violence, cites safety measures<\/p>\n

Florida sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday, accusing the company of misrepresenting the safety of its ChatGPT<\/a> platform, which the lawsuit said has harmed children by providing information to school shooters, offering guidance on self-harm and addicting young users.\n<\/p>\n

Marking the first state to take legal action against the company, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, a Republican, filed the lawsuit in Florida state court. It cited a shooting at a Tallahassee university last year and a number of events in other states where ChatGPT allegedly provided information to people who went on to commit violence.<\/p>\n

At a press conference, Uthmeier said the state named Altman personally because he had been \u201cvery central\u201d to pushing some of the features on ChatGPT that Uthmeier said had been the most harmful.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are getting hurt, parents are getting deceived, and they need to pay for it,\u201d Uthmeier told reporters.\n<\/p>\n

The lawsuit seeks damages up to billions of dollars, Uthmeier said, plus a court order directing the company to change how it interacts with young users.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\n<\/p>\n

OpenAI has said it trains its models \u200bto refuse requests \u2060that could \u201cmeaningfully enable violence,\u201d and notifies law enforcement when conversations suggest \u201can imminent and credible risk of harm to others,\u201d with mental health<\/a> experts helping assess borderline cases.\n<\/p>\n

Uthmeier announced in April that he was launching a criminal investigation into ChatGPT\u2019s role in a 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University after prosecutors \u200breviewed the chat logs between the alleged shooter and the program.\n<\/p>\n

AI companies are facing a growing wave of lawsuits accusing them of failing to prevent chatbot interactions \u2060that plaintiffs \u200bsay contribute to self-harm, mental illness and violence.\n<\/p>\n

OpenAI is also facing a lawsuit filed by the family of a man killed in the shooting at Florida State University, claiming the shooter was aided by ChatGPT in planning the attack.\n<\/p>\n

In April, family members of \u200bvictims of one of Canada\u2019s deadliest mass shootings filed a group of lawsuits against OpenAI and Altman, alleging the company knew eight months before the attack \u200bthat the shooter was planning it on ChatGPT but did not warn police.\n<\/p>\n

Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Nia Williams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Key takeaways: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier files lawsuit Lawsuit cites Tallahassee university shooting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[25,580,34478,1183,51,157,8932],"class_list":["post-59555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-chatgpt","tag-customer-protection-law","tag-florida","tag-mental-health","tag-openai","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}